The Bijuu Sage
by Leonineus
Summary: Akatsuki have all the bijuu except the Kyūbi no Kitsune, contained by an eight-year-old Naruto Uzumaki. When two of Akatsuki's best are sent to capture him, what will happen once the sealing begins? fem!Bijuu harem, powerful!Naruto.
1. Abduction

The Bijuu Sage

Prologue

**(A/N: Hey all, Leonineus here with the very first chapter of the new and improved edition of The Bijuu Sage! I hope you enjoy it, I worked hard on this. And you wouldn't want me to get upset because you don't enjoy it… *evil smirk* …would you?)**

Naruto Uzumaki had always known that the Kyūbi no Kitsune was sealed inside him. He had known ever since he had first been kicked out of the orphanage. A mob had chased him almost as soon as he left the orphanage.

He had been found unconscious and bleeding by the Hokage, who had witnessed the beating through the crystal ball he used to overlook the village and taken to the hospital where several med-nins were asked (read: threatened) to treat him.

As soon as Naruto was allowed out of the hospital (various attempts to kill him in his sleep or sabotage the equipment around him being foiled by an ANBU stationed just inside the door), Sarutobi set him up in his own apartment on the edge of town with an ANBU watch. It was secluded; the building the apartment was in had long since been abandoned and nobody went there any more, therefore it was perfect for Naruto's purposes.

The drawback, obviously, was that if the ANBU guard was neutralized before he could raise the alarm in the event of an intruder, nobody would know a thing was going on.

As such, the two Akatsuki members sent to collect the last jinchūriki two years later were able to exploit this quite easily. A blond Iwa missing-nin by the name of Deidara and a hunched Suna missing-nin by the name of Sasori were able to walk right up to the building before the ANBU on guard realized somebody was there, only for a small clay spider to latch onto his mask and explode. He was lucky; the mask took the brunt of the small blast, but the shockwave concussed him. All he was able to glimpse was a black cloak with red clouds.

Naruto opened the door when somebody knocked to find a tall blond man on the step, "Hey, are you Naruto Uzumaki?"

Naruto leaned against the door cautiously. Inside his head, Kyūbi was muttering warnings. "Yes…"

The man smiled, "Excellent! Goodnight now!"

Naruto just had time to say, "Hey, wha…" before the doorway exploded, throwing him backwards into the room with such force that he hit the wall and passed out.

Deidara frowned as he hefted the unconscious jinchūriki onto his back, "That was easier than I thought it'd be. This kid sucks at using his bijuu. Oh well." He walked out, taking care to allow about a dozen of his more explosive pieces of "art" to filter out through the building as he left, picking up Sasori as the two Akatsuki members left the village.

Sarutobi, unbeknownst to either of them, had actually turned on his crystal ball to see the ANBU lying unconscious on the floor, and immediately headed over to find out what was going on. He was just in time to pick up the ANBU and shunshin him out of the building when the structure went up with a deafening BOOM.

Sarutobi stared at the burning building for a long moment before he bellowed, "NARUTO!"

Chapter One: Abduction

Pein squinted down at the small boy at his feet, unconscious and tied up with enough ninja wire to pin down a boss summon, "Are you sure this is the Kyūbi jinchūriki? He doesn't look anything like I expected him to."

Deidara shrugged, "He said his name was Naruto Uzumaki. Anyway, let's just seal the little bastard's bijuu already!"

Konan, who was standing next to Pein and also surveying the unconscious child, looked up, "Touchy…"

Deidara scowled, folding his arms irritably, "He must've woken up about eighty times in the week and a half it took us to get here. Little bastard's really slippery as well, took most of my clay to pin him down long enough for Sasori to catch up to him. Eventually we just tied him up so he couldn't get away any more."

Konan looked thoughtful as she bent down and picked the boy up, dragging him into position.

"Right then," said Pein cheerfully, shaking the disbelief from his mind and cracking his knuckles, "Right then, everybody get on your fingers and let's get to the sealing!"

Everybody stared at him, "…What?"

Konan shook her head slightly, "Nagato-kun, never do that again please."

Pein ran a hand across his face, really hating when he transferred his consciousness from his own body into that of his old friend. It always meant that he was influenced by the vestiges of Yahiko's personality that remained in the body, meaning he would end up oddly chipper at random moments of the day. Evidently this was one of those moments.

Pein nodded, "Ok, Konan-chan. Let's get on with this." Without waiting for a response, he shunshined up to the huge demonic statue and landed on the right thumb. Itachi and Kisame moved up to their fingers as well and formed hand seals.

Naruto lay before the statue, a corona of reddish chakra enveloping him and lifting him from the floor. The statue's massive mouth opened, and the single eye, the eye right in the middle of its head, began to crack open.

Kyūbi was freaking out inside Naruto's mind, clawing frantically at the walls of her prison in an attempt to find some purchase which could save her from the sealing jutsu that attempted to suck her out of Naruto's head.

-TBS-

The jutsu continued for another two days. Kyūbi was slowly but steadily being dragged from Naruto's head. Finally, with a muffled roar, Kyūbi's consciousness flashed out of Naruto's head and into the statue. The red chakra faded, and Naruto went limp, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

Kyūbi looked around, sealed into the darkness of the statue, **"Hello?"**

Voices came out of the darkness, excited voices, **"Kyūbi-sama? Is that you?"**

Kyūbi frowned, if a kitsune can frown, **"Nibi-chan? Is that you?"**

The darkness lifted, revealing a large chamber. In the chamber, arranged in a circle, were eight creatures the Kyūbi recognized at once.

The Ichibi no Shukaku, looking as psychotic as ever with an insane grin on her face.

The Nibi no Nekomata, looking haughty and bored like the neko queen she was.

The Sanbi no Kyodaigame, Yonbi no Saru, Gobi no Irukauma, and Rokubi no Namekuji all staring at the Kyūbi as she prowled closer.

The Nanabi no Kabutomushi, looking around the room and occasionally scratching at the floor with her legs in nervous anticipation.

The Hachibi no Kyogyū, looking regal as she sat back and snorted plumes of steam from her nose.

Kyūbi sat in the empty space they had left for her, looking around at the demons she had once known, **"Sisters, it is nice to see you again."**

Hachibi spoke to her right, her rumbling voice echoing in the empty chamber, **"It is good to see you too, Kyūbi-sama. I regret that you have been captured, but it has been so long since my last host was dominated."**

"**My host may yet be alive," **Kyūbi responded, **"If we can break out of this seal, we can rejoin him."**

The Nibi, on Shukaku's left where she sat to Kyūbi's left, hissed angrily and flexed her claws against the floor, **"And how do we go about doing that, Kyūbi-sama? Ever since we got here, we have been trying day and night to break out of this seal!"**

Kyūbi flicked her tails, leaning forwards to look past the Shukaku at the Nekomata, **"Yet I am sure you have not worked together in the attempt. As proud as you other demons are, you would not have thought to try working as one to break out."**

Across from him, the Six-Tailed Slug slapped her tails against the floor and spoke, **"Be careful of your words, Kyūbi-sama. We may yet elect a new demon queen to lead us."**

Kyūbi snorted, standing up and pacing back and forth in the middle of the circle, **"You say you have been imprisoned here for a long time, and you wish to be free again. Why do you not work together then? My own host, one Naruto Uzumaki, treated me with respect the day he met me. How did your hosts treat you? With disrespect and dishonour, I suppose, only speaking when they needed you as a tool to defy their enemies! Who do we answer to?"**

The Ichibi stood up, roaring, **"Nobody!"**

Kyūbi rounded on her, **"Then why do we just sit here, and dance to their tune when they wish to use us as a weapon? Why do we not work together to break free?"**

Nibi stood now, her two tails flicking angrily, **"We cannot! Even if we were to escape, where would we go? All they would do is to hunt us down again!"**

Kyūbi turned to her now, **"My host, Naruto, is a powerful shinobi on his own, if a little… unrefined. If we break out of here, what is stopping us from joining forces with him to stop these people from exploiting us?"**

The Sanbi spoke, her voice sounding like boulders grinding together underwater, but still with the musical notes characteristic of the bijuu, **"He is a human! We owe NOTHING to the humans!"**

Kyūbi turned to the Sanbi, and everybody was startled to see a slight look of worry on the Nine-Tails' vulpine face, **"I… I…"**

The Gobi moved slowly forwards, considering the Nine-Tails before her, **"You like him."**

Kyūbi bowed her head, scratching at the floor, **"He's a good kit. I may have screwed up his life by getting sealed in him, but I won't just stand aside and let him die. He's grown on me the last eight years, and I can't just let that slide." **She slowly walked away, facing the wall she had appeared beside, her nine tails stretched out on the floor, unmoving.

The other bijuu looked at each other for a minute before nodding and standing up.

The Kyūbi jumped when there was an almighty crash and a cloud of dust. She looked sideways to see the Gobi, Rokubi, Nanabi and Hachibi readying their Tailed Beast Ball attacks. **"What…?" **she murmured.

Nibi, who was standing behind her, batted at her tails as a gesture of affection. Back in the days before the bijuu were forced to fight to survive, this was a common way of one bijuu showing affection, appreciation or assurance to another, **"We're getting out of here, Kyūbi-sama. We're going to bust out of here, kill all those who dared try enslave us and save your host."**

Kyūbi twisted around, getting to her feet as four massive balls of chakra smashed into the wall.

-TBS-

Outside, in the cavern, Zetsu had just been directed by Pein to dispose of the jinchūriki's body. Little did they realize, Naruto wasn't dead yet. The incredible endurance of the Uzumaki clan, like his mother before him, had allowed him to live through the extraction.

There was a shudder, almost imperceptible, but Kakuzu noticed it. "What was…" he started to say, before Hidan cursed and pointed at the statue.

The gigantic demonic statue was moving; shuddering violently. Hollow booms echoed from it. Finally, it swayed, the stone around it cracking at the ceiling and floor, and it toppled forwards.

The statue hit the ground, shattering into infinitesimal pieces, and out of it erupted all nine bijuu, unsealed and angry.

Pein tried to summon his Paths, but this proved to be the doom of him. The Hachibi spotted him doing this, remembered what had happened to her last host when he had summoned his Paths, and contemptuously stomped on him. Blood oozed from under its foot as Pein was crushed like a grape. Konan screamed, "Nagato-kun!" but the Nibi cast her into a wall, knocking her out. The other Akatsuki fled, scattering towards the cave entrance. Even they were not foolish enough to take on all nine bijuu at once.

Kyūbi turned to look at her host, butting him with her nose. He moved, ever so slightly. **"Kit!" **Kyūbi cried in relief, **"Kit! Can you hear me?"**

Naruto moaned, "K-Kyūbi?"

Behind the Kyūbi, the other eight bijuu suddenly buckled, making sounds of pain. Kyūbi turned to face them, **"What's the problem?"**

Nibi spoke, her musical voice hissing with pain, **"We've… we've been sealed too long! After a few days of being sealed, a sudden unsealing would hurt us massively, the way that seal was constructed! There is only one way we can all survive now! We need a vessel, NOW!"**

Kyūbi understood, turning back to her kit, **"Kit, I need you to focus. This will sting a little, alright?"**

Naruto nodded weakly, "What, Kyūbi?"

Kyūbi stepped back, **"Everybody, channel your chakra into Naruto, NOW!"**

Eight lances of chakra poured from the bijuu, weaving together into a plaited pattern and connecting with Naruto, who groaned in pain. Kyūbi added her own stream of chakra to the mix, looking down at her host as he writhed in pain on the ground.

Minutes passed, the nine bijuu staying absolutely still, each pouring their chakra into the connections between them and Naruto. Finally, one after the other, they dematerialized, first the Shukaku, then the Nibi, and then each in turn.

Kyūbi was the last to go. She looked down at her host with concern as she pushed the last of her chakra into the boy, and felt herself start to dematerialize, _**"Naruto…" **_she thought; _**"I hope you can protect us. Even bijuu need people to protect them, no matter how powerful they are…"**_

-TBS-

Naruto came round, finding himself lying on his back on the floor of a room. Looking around, it struck him how blank the room was. Not light, yet not shadowy either; it was simply _there_. **"Hey, you're awake," **said a musical female voice.

Naruto looked down towards his feet. Standing twenty feet away were nine women, and all of them had tails. The woman who had spoken, who had nine tails and a small pair of fox ears, smiled and stepped forwards, **"Naruto-kun…"**

Naruto struggled to sit upright, groaning and holding his head, "Where… where am I?"

"**We're inside your mindscape, Naruto-kun…"**

"Who are they?" said Naruto, pulling himself up on Kyūbi's helpful arm and looking towards the eight figures standing some way off.

Kyūbi helped him stand up and turned to face them. She pointed to them, "**These are the other bijuu, Naruto-kun."**

Naruto grinned foxily at them, "I don't think we've been introduced…"

The one-tailed woman, who had two small perky ears on top of her head and black rings around her eyes, grinned in a somewhat psychotic fashion, **"I'm the Ichibi no Shukaku, ya maggot!"**

The two-tailed woman, who had two cat ears sticking out of her blue, black-streaked hair, nodded formally to Naruto, **"I am the Nibi no Nekomata."**

The three-tailed woman, who had a large shell on her back, nodded and growled, **"I'm the Sanbi no Kyodaigame."**

The four-tailed woman, covered in fine brown fur **(A/N: Think the monkey half of Renji Abarai's Zanpakutō spirit from Bleach, Zabimaru)**, smiled slightly, **"I am the Yonbi no Saru."**

The five-tailed woman, who had an odd protrusion on her back like a fin, chuckled, **"I'm the Gobi no Irukauma, nice to meet you Naruto-kun."**

The six-tailed woman had a pair of antenna; she examined Naruto critically for a second before saying, **"You're a small one aren't you? But I guess if Kyūbi-sama trusts you, I can. I'm the Rokubi no Namekuji."**

The seven-tailed woman had an odd, hard, shell-like object on her back. Every few seconds it flared and revealed some translucent wings. She seemed a little hyperactive as she said, **"It's great to meet Kyūbi-sama's jinchūriki, absolutely great, such an honour to meet the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails…"**

"**Nanabi-san," **Kyūbi interjected, **"Please don't ramble, you just have to introduce yourself at the moment."**

The seven-tailed woman nodded frantically for a minute before grinning at Naruto, **"I'm the Nanabi no Kabutomushi, nice to meet you!"**

When Naruto turned to the last woman, she regarded him with a stern eye. She had eight tails and long horns that jutted from the sides of her head. **"I," **she said in a rumbling, yet feminine, voice, **"am the Hachibi no Kyogyū, boy. You had better be capable of wielding the power we will give you, or you will die like a pathetic ant."**

"**Hachibi-san," **reproached Kyūbi, **"Please be polite to my jinchūriki." **She waited for a second, but when no apology was forthcoming she continued, **"Naruto-kun, we all need somewhere to sleep. You need to focus and build your mindscape with your mind."**

Naruto nodded, turning to look at the other bijuu, "What do you want?"

Ichibi smirked, **"I'd like a big desert."**

Nibi smiled, **"I'd like a cat basket with mice to chase. Also, a scratching post and an endless supply of milk." **When she saw Kyūbi stare at her, she blushed, **"What? Old habits are hard to break!"**

Sanbi frowned, **"I'd like a big serene lake…"**

Yonbi laughed, **"I want a big jungle with lots of coconut palms! Old habits are hard to break for me too."**

Gobi nodded pensively, **"I would like the same as Sanbi-san, please."**

Rokubi slapped one of her tails against the floor, **"Ummm… hell, just give me a cabbage patch with a never-ending supply of cabbages. I'm hungry as heck."**

Nanabi fluttered her wings for a minute before she spoke, **"Can you give me a large hive? Like a termite hive, but big enough for me to fit inside?"**

Hachibi snorted, fiddling with one of her horns for a second before she grunted, **"I want a watering hole, in the middle of a wide plain, with a couple of date palms."**

When Naruto turned to the Kyūbi, she smiled at him and said, **"I'd like a fox hole; a relaxing den for me to sleep in."**

Naruto nodded, before closing his eyes and concentrating. Nine doors appeared off the room, each with a different number on it. "Ok, go," said Naruto in a slightly weary tone.

Each of them except Kyūbi wandered towards their doors, opening them and looking in. Various cries of glee issued from the doors as each woman adopted their animal form and ran (or slithered, or plodded, or scuttled) through the doors, which swung shut behind them.

Kyūbi turned to Naruto before hugging him tightly, **"I think it's time for you to wake up now, Naru-kun."**

Naruto looked up at the Kyūbi, "Will you stay with me?"

Kyūbi smiled, **"We're not leaving. We'll stay with you."**

Naruto nodded, "Thanks. I… I guess I'll be waking up now."

-TBS-

Naruto opened his eyes to find the blue-haired kunoichi bending over him. Instinctively he recoiled away from her, "Get back!"

Konan frowned, "I'm not going to hurt you. The only reason I'm in Akatsuki at all is because my husband is… _was_… the leader. The Hachibi stepped on him just before the Nibi hit me into the wall. Now that he's dead, I have no ties to Akatsuki; I will help you return to Konoha. My name is Konan, by the way."

Naruto gave her a suspicious look, "How do I know I can trust you?"

Konan sighed before pulling off her Akatsuki robe and taking a ring from her finger, "Akatsuki is no more."

Naruto didn't say anything for a long moment, until Kyūbi spoke into the back of his mind, _**"I can't detect any trickery from her, Naruto-kun. I think you can probably trust her."**_

"_Are you sure, Kyūbi-chan?"_

"_**Yes. One of my unique abilities is I can tell when somebody is lying to me. Well, actually it's detecting negative emotions but it's basically the same thing since lying to somebody incurs negative emotions. She's trustworthy."**_

Naruto nodded to himself before saying, "Fine. Can you take me back to Konoha?"

Konan nodded, standing up and holding out a hand to him. Naruto hesitated for the briefest second before taking it, and the two of them vanished in a swirl of pieces of paper.

-TBS-

Hiruzen Sarutobi was close to despair; his favourite orphan had disappeared two weeks ago with no trace other than his destroyed apartment block and there had as yet been no sign that he was coming back. The council were pushing for him to be declared a missing-nin (a stretch seeing as the boy hadn't even gone to the Academy yet; he had after all only just turned eight and wasn't supposed to go to the Academy for at least another six months) and there was already a reward for anybody who found any leads.

The old man buried his face in his hands. His successor's son was missing and there was nothing he could do to help him.

An ANBU interrupted Sarutobi's thoughts by poking his head through the door, "Hokage-sama? You might want to see this."

Sarutobi sighed, sitting up straight and looking towards the door. A second later his jaw dropped as the door opened and he saw two figures walking in. One was an unfamiliar woman with a paper flower in her blue hair, amber eyes and a small piercing in her lower lip. The other was… Naruto.

Naruto grinned, "Hey, jiji! Been a while!"

Sarutobi practically vaulted over his desk in his haste to get to his surrogate grandson, "Naruto! Where've you been? What happened to you?"

Naruto frowned, "I got abducted. These guys blew up my apartment and took me out of town. I kept escaping but they kept blowing up the trees I was hiding behind and finally they just tied me up. They used some kind of jutsu to pull Kyūbi-chan out of my head. How everybody else manages to be alone inside their head and not go crazy I will never know."

Sarutobi spluttered, "You know about the Kyūbi?"

Naruto nodded quietly, "Yes. I met her when I was kicked out of the orphanage. When I got chased by that mob and you found me?"

Sarutobi nodded, remembering the event two years previously.

Naruto smiled, "She's not alone in there now."

Sarutobi stared at him blankly for a minute before he said, "I thought you said she was extracted?"

Naruto nodded, "She was. Konan-chan can probably explain; I was unconscious at that point."

Sarutobi turned to look at the blue-haired woman, who folded her arms, "The statue into which our organization was sealing the bijuu was destroyed from the inside out and the bijuu were released. One of them stepped on my husband, the leader of the organization, and another hit me into the wall. After that, I assume the bijuu escaped as I was alone except for Naruto and my husband's body."

Naruto shook his head, "They didn't escape. They went into me."

Sarutobi blinked at the boy for a second, "Sorry?"

Naruto repeated himself, "The bijuu went into me. Kyūbi-chan says that it was something to do with the statue's seal; they were in pain from the sudden unsealing when the statue broke and they needed a vessel. As such I'm not so much the jinch… jinchūr…"

Konan smiled, "Jinchūriki?"

Naruto nodded, "…jinchūriki of Kyūbi-chan any more, more like the jinchūriki of all nine bijuu."

Sarutobi stared at Naruto, "Is _anything_ simple in your life?"

Naruto folded his arms, "I think the Yodaime saw to that, eight years ago!"

"_Yon_daime, Naruto-kun," said Konan.

Naruto nodded, "That too."

Konan chuckled, before turning to the Sandaime, "I'm not actually a kunoichi, by the way. I learnt to utilize my kekkei genkai control of paper from Jiraiya of the Sannin, but other than that, I have nothing to my name."

Sarutobi turned to face her, "That is alright. You can take a refresher course, though I would like a demonstration of your abilities with your kekkei genkai. I would give you a warning though; you might want to keep a bloodline like that to yourself. If the council were to find out; they might try and put you into the breeding program, full-grown woman or not."

Konan nodded, "I understand."

Sarutobi smiled, "Naruto, you need to get your stuff from your apartment. If Konan-san is willing, I'd like to put you in the same house as her."

"Hokage-sama…" said the ANBU in the corner, the very same one who had failed to defend Naruto from the Akatsuki and only recently released from the hospital back onto active duty, "His apartment complex was destroyed… remember?"

Sarutobi frowned, "Oh yes. Oh well, I guess you'll have to get all new stuff then."

He walked over to his desk and looked in a drawer, finally coming back with a key ring with a set of keys on it, "Here. The keys to an empty house I own on the edge of town. It has a really spacious garden, so you can use it to practice your new abilities, Naruto."

"**Ask him if there's sand there." **The Ichibi's voice spoke up in the back of his mind. He could tell it was hers from the slightly psychotic giggling she followed it up with.

Naruto repeated the question, and Sarutobi looked puzzled, "Why do you need to know?"

A few seconds passed before Naruto replied, "Shukaku-chan says she wants to teach me her sand-based techniques and Nanabi-chan wants to teach me to use Dust Release."

Sarutobi's eyebrows rose into his thinning hairline, "Would you mind telling me what techniques they're going to teach you?"

Naruto shrugged, "Too many to count right now. When I learn some, I'll give you a quick demonstration, alright?"

Sarutobi nodded, before something else struck him, "Naruto? Why are you behaving so mature right now?"

Naruto gave him a sardonic look, "I share my head with nine awesomely powerful creatures. All of them agree that if they're going to give me the ability to defend them from the people who'd use them as nothing more than a weapon, I need to be mature. Shukaku-chan tells me that her main ability is the telly-keen-tick…"

Konan laughed, "Telekinetic?"

Naruto nodded, "I'm just saying her words and I can't get them all right… the telekinetic control of sand particles to either attack and defend. Can you see that in the hands of an immature eight-year-old?"

Sarutobi resisted the urge to break down and cry in the corner like a little girl at that thought. Steeling himself, he said, "Very well. I will issue a genin squad to drop a couple of bags of sand at your house for you to use."

Konan spoke up, "Actually, could we commission that team for a full job? I heard the reports on each jinchūriki's host as they were taken and a couple of them employed very different styles. I think I could probably draw up a plan of what we actually need to convert the garden into a training ground."

Sarutobi nodded, "Do whatever you need to do."

Konan smiled before turning to Naruto, "Let's go then, Naruto."

-TBS-

Naruto flopped back onto his new bed. They had spent the day clearing up the entire house that Sarutobi had given them, before going out to the shopping district to buy Naruto some clothes, since he had been wearing the same ones for about the last two weeks and they were beginning to stink something awful.

Konan had come back from this trip in a towering rage. Only the fact that the Sandaime Hokage had just put a lot of trust in her by letting her stay in contact with Naruto had stopped her from using her Shikigami Dance and blowing the entire merchant's district sky-high for the way they had been treating Naruto.

The one merchant in particular who had punched Naruto and tried to manhandle him out of the shop when he entered had found out what a bad idea that was the hard way. She didn't know if he'd ever be able to look at another clothes hanger without screaming in terror and fainting, what with the amount of them she had jammed into various painful orifices before leaving him tied up and hanging from the sign in front of his shop.

The owner of the clothes shop directly opposite had seen the whole thing through the front window of his shop, so when they walked in five minutes later he was only too happy to serve them.

Konan had been slightly bemused when she handed him the hanger from a deep blue jumpsuit and he almost shrieked with terror. Naruto had found the whole thing hilarious on the other hand.

They had eventually decided on a neutral black jumpsuit with a dark red stripe down the left leg and a deep blue stripe down the right and, at Naruto's request, orange bands around the wrists.

Now Naruto lay in bed with a closet full of clothes, a stomach full of something that was home-made and most definitely _not_ ramen but tasty all the same, and his head full of sleepy females saying goodnight.

Drowsily changing into his new nightclothes, Naruto dropped into bed and quickly fell asleep.

-TBS-

Naruto woke up early the next morning when Yonbi, evidently suffering from a mischievous streak, shouted, _**"FREE RAMEN OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!"**_

The small blond had, predictably, shot bolt upright and was halfway down the stairs when he registered laughter in the back of his head.

"_Bad Yonbi-chan…" _he pouted, having identified the source of the prank from a dim echo of Hachibi remonstrating the monkey bijuu.

"_**Oh lighten up,"**_the bijuu shot back, _**"From what Kyūbi-chan's been telling us you've been doing pranks since you were knee-high to a grasshopper."**_

"_Yeah but… I… shut up."_

"_**Aww, did I confuse you poor baby? What a shame."**_

"_I said shut up!"_

"Naruto-kun," said a voice, interrupting Naruto's mental argument with the beings that shared his mind, "Are you alright? Why are you standing in the middle of the hall?"

Naruto shook his head, coming back to full awareness of the outside world to find Konan standing in front of him wearing a dressing gown he figured must be one of the things that Konan had sent off one of her paper clones to buy the previous day.

"Er, yeah I'm fine, just having an argument with the tenants."

Konan chuckled before she walked over and escorted Naruto into the kitchen for breakfast, "Well anyway, we need to draw up a plan of what we need to build the garden into so you can train with your new skills, Naruto-kun. I'm going to need you to list all your new abilities so that I can make a list and then cross-reference whatever we'll need. For example, if I recall correctly the Yonbi can spit lava. We're going to need targets that are either massively heat-resistant or will reform when destroyed."

"_You can do that?"_

"_**Yup… Impressed?"**_

"_Impressed by somebody who tricked me into thinking there was free ramen? Not likely. Don't ever do that to me again."_

"_**Wimp."**_

Naruto dropped back into full awareness when Konan dropped a bowl of porridge in front of him and smiled, "Eat up, we've got a lot of work to do today."

Naruto's response was to immediately chow down and not speak until the end of breakfast when he went up for a shower.

-TBS-

"So," said Konan, jotting something else down on the notepad in front of her before looking up at the boy sitting opposite her, "The Hachibi allows you to create ink?"

Naruto paused for a split second before nodding, "Yeah. Hachibi-chan says yes. She also says she hopes I don't start rapping like her last jinchūriki, whatever that means…"

Konan laughed, "Oh yeah, I remember that one. Nagato told me about it; apparently the guy didn't stop rapping for the entire battle and only stopped when all six of Nagato's paths jumped him at the same time."

Naruto frowned, "You know I could always start rapping for Hachibi-chan if she'd prefer…"

A second passed before he suddenly grabbed the sides of his head and said, "OW! Hachibi-chan, what was that for?"

"_**Don't you **_**dare**_** start rapping, Naruto. I got enough of that from my last jinchūriki, and I never **_**ever**_** want to experience it again."**_

"_Ok, ok, I get the idea. Sorry, Hachibi-chan."_

Konan got him back on task, "So what can Hachibi do with her ink? All Nagato apparently saw during the fight with her previous jinchūriki was a really, _really_ big ox with tentacles of all things."

Naruto paused for a second before he said, "She says I can spit it in my enemy's eyes to gain an advantage in a fight… That's all. Apparently that's really its only functional use apart from I can actually use the ink to write with if I get some on my fingers."

Konan mused, "Hmm, that might be handy for fūinjutsu. What about the Kyūbi, what can it… she… do?"

Naruto was silent for a long moment before he spoke again in a voice as though he was reading from a speech, "She can use three real attacks; The Fire Stream, the Sonic Roar and the Twister. She says they're all pretty self-explanatory."

Konan nodded and scribbled that down before she suddenly said, "Alright, now I need to start working on what you need to learn…"

Naruto nodded, before he suddenly heard a loud outbreak of yelling inside his head and said, "I think Shukaku-chan is having a breakdown, be right back."

He closed his eyes and slipped into his mindscape.

-TBS-

The bijuu were busily ignoring Shukaku's psychotic rage as she screamed and cursed in her own room about killing the entire world. As such none of them really noticed when Naruto appeared in his mindscape and walked into Ichibi's room, being too busy engrossed in their own methods of distracting themselves.

They noticed however, when the psychotic rants and laughter turned into very real laughter, and when Shukaku started begging _somebody_ to stop they all headed out of their own rooms to see what was happening.

They found Naruto and Shukaku tussling on the sandy floor of Shukaku's room with the eight-year-old exploiting Shukaku's biggest new-found weakness; namely her very ticklish stomach.

"**You know,"** said Kyūbi quietly to the Nibi who sat next to her, **"Is it wrong of me to be really jealous of Shukaku right now?"**

Nibi didn't respond; she was too busy watching Shukaku beg for mercy under Naruto's dextrous fingers with a slight feeling of envy that she forced down in favour of keeping her haughty neko queen image intact.

Hachibi scowled, **"Such unseemly behaviour…"**

Nanabi snorted, and Kyūbi had a sudden sense of trepidation; the seven-tails had always been a bit like Naruto; blunt and to the point, **"Oh lighten up, Hachibi-san. You're such a prude; I bet you really want Naruto to force you down and…"**

She was cut off by the Sanbi and Gobi noticing the Hachibi's rising aura of killing intent and tackling the Nanabi to the floor before she could annoy the eight-tails any more.

The play-wrestle between Naruto and Shukaku continued for another fifteen minutes before the one-tail finally managed to shove Naruto off and slump back against the sand, gasping for breath.

"**Wow, I'm impressed," **remarked Yonbi to the other bijuu, at least all the ones currently standing, **"Eight years old and already wearing out the weakest of our number. I can't wait until his stamina's improved enough to keep up with **_**me**_**!"**

There was a pause, and then a small red hand swept through the air and clipped her round the back of the head, **"Hands off my Naruto-kun, Yonbi-chan. I was sealed in him first so I get first dibs."**

"**Alright, kid," **came Shukaku's weak voice from within the room, drawing all their attention, even that of the Sanbi, Gobi and Nanabi still lying on the floor, **"You managed to conquer me… let me start you off on sand manipulation."**

Naruto perked up immediately, flipping around so that he was sitting in an attentive position. Shukaku chuckled calmly (Yes, CALMLY!) at his enthusiasm and adopted a meditative position, **"Alright then, what you need to do is try and imbue the sand around you with your chakra and try to move it. Let's begin."**

-TBS-

**Two weeks later.**

"And so," said Sarutobi to the horde of new recruits outside the Academy, "May your shinobi careers begin their development, and may you serve your village and country well!"

Naruto smirked, a tendril of sand rising over his shoulder as he followed the new teacher into his new classroom, leaving Konan waving goodbye in the yard outside. The next four years were going to be so much _fun_.

The first thing he discovered was that his class had the last Uchiha, remnant of a clan that had been exterminated three years before, though he didn't know how; and the boy's clique of fangirls. Naruto (and by extension Yonbi) had them pegged for potential targets as soon as they laid eyes on them, prompting them to do an almost in-synch movement; namely rubbing their hands together in glee and cackling evilly.

The class started quite quickly. The teacher introduced himself as Iruka Umino (prompting Gobi to whoop and start cheering for a fellow dolphin), before launching into a lecture of what a shinobi needed to be capable of in order to complete their missions successfully. Under cover of this lecture, Naruto started scouting the room for targets besides the Uchiha and his followers. A rotund boy eating from a bag of chips, a boy with a small white dog, a pineapple-haired boy taking a nap in his seat, a boy in a high-collared coat with sunglasses, a small indigo-haired girl with pale lavender eyes, the Uchiha's clique, and the Uchiha himself. Not really a fine crop of candidates to prank, but he'd have to make do.

Moving his hands slowly and gently so as not to make it obvious what he was doing, he concentrated, feeling for the expanded bag Konan had made for him with a couple of seals so that he could carry his sand on him wherever he went. Finding it, he undid the top and focused his mind on the chakra-imbued sand lying within.

The Uchiha was sitting in his chair and doing his best stoic impression (and ignoring the urge to kill the two girls currently fawning over him) when he suddenly felt something like a codpiece made of sand squeeze unimaginably tight around his crotch, causing him to let out a screech of pain and fall off his chair.

Naruto grinned to himself as he summoned the sand back as fast as he could, leaving the Uchiha lying on the floor trying to work out how he'd just been wedgied.

"Are you alright… Sasuke?" said Iruka, checking the register for his name.

"Yes," said Sasuke in a higher voice than usual, "I'm fine."

Naruto, sitting at the back, was currently laughing his ass off with Yonbi in his mindscape, stopped laughing for a second to chuckle to himself, _"Yup. The next four years are going to be _brilliant_."_

**(A/N: …and there you have it folks, the first real chapter of Bijuu Sage! If people want me to, I'll post a list of Naruto's current powers and for a couple of the bijuu which I don't currently have powers for, you can put forth your own suggestions. You all know the drill; drop reviews with all your questions, suggestions and opinions, and I'll see you when I post the next chapter. Leonineus, OUT!)**


	2. Teams

The Bijuu Sage

Chapter Two: Teams

**(A/N: Credit goes to Hyrulian Hero Akai, a good friend who I can bounce my ideas off of, for reminding me that some of the bijuu need mediums to use their abilities and giving me ideas for what they can be.)**

"Oh my god."

Kami and the other gods and goddesses were staring blankly down at the screen showing the boy sitting in his classroom as he continued to weave pure evil.

Kami took the advantage, "Dibs on not doing his paperwork!"

A torrent of swearing was the response she got, particularly from her sister Yami. This was mainly because in their eternal dibs war, whenever one was fast enough to call dibs on not doing the paperwork, the other would have to do it. And they only really broke out the dibs protocol when there was a shit load of paperwork on the line.

"Tut-tut, Yami-sama…" said a teasing voice from behind them.

Yami whirled on the culprit, registered that it was Inari and grinned unpleasantly, "Say, Inari, care to take this paperwork? It is technically your domain, after all."

Inari blinked before recovering, "What makes you say that?"

Yami pointed down at the boy, "He is the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox, primarily, and we all know that the kitsune are your creatures."

Inari knew they had him on that logic, so he sighed and said, "Fine, I'll take it."

Both Kami and Yami beamed at him, "Why thank you, Inari-san! You're ever so kind!"

"Don't rub it in," he grumbled as he walked away.

Kami and Yami turned back to the screen, snickering quietly as they watched the sand-manipulating jinchūriki ply his art with the skill of a master.

-TBS-

Ino Yamanaka's face was going bright red as she bit her lip and tried to answer Iruka's question in an even voice, all the while she could feel what felt like feathers stroking over her toes.

In fact, it was extremely fine grains of sand that were stroking over her feet, courtesy of Naruto Uzumaki, who sat at the back with his eyes fixed on the board, his fingers occasionally twitching under the desk's smooth wooden surface as he continued to torment a member of the Uchiha fan-club.

A few minutes passed before Ino finally snapped and looked under the desk to find out what was tickling her feet. Quick as lightning, Naruto withdrew the sand under her chair so that she couldn't see it.

-TBS-

At break, Naruto hung out with Kiba, Shikamaru and Chōji. Or, more accurately, he hung out with them while his mind was engaged in a conversation with the bijuu.

He was currently receiving a rather half-hearted remonstration from Hachibi about "proper behaviour". Half-hearted because of what Naruto was currently doing while listening to her lecture; namely driving Nibi into a near-orgasmic state of pleasure by rubbing her ears. The other bijuu (except for Hachibi) were all watching Nibi rolling on the floor trying to keep her purring to a minimum and feeling extremely jealous.

Finally, Hachibi just made a noise of disgust and stormed off to her room. Naruto got up, leaving Nibi panting on the floor, "Do you think she'll forgive me?"

His worried expression almost made all their hearts break. Kyūbi patted him on the shoulder, "She will eventually. Just give her time to calm down, then you can hit her with your charm."

"**In the meantime,"** gasped Nibi from the floor, **"He's definitely got me licked. You, Naruto, will soon have to learn my techniques."**

"Awesome!" said Naruto happily, "What are your techniques?"

"**My main technique is called Breath of the Hellcat. It's essentially just me breathing fire over a large area."**

Naruto grinned, "Awesome…"

Kyūbi clipped him round the back of the head, **"No pyromania from you, please."**

Naruto's childish pout drew laughter from the other bijuu, who regarded him fondly for a minute before Kyūbi gave him a gentle push, **"You should go; before your friends notice you look a little vacant."**

Naruto nodded and allowed himself to slip out of his mindscape.

-TBS-

The days passed, until finally Naruto had completed his first month in the Academy. Naruto had quickly proven himself to be intelligent (the combined intellect of nine powerful beasts was a very impressive thing), attentive and eager to answer questions.

It was at this point that a spanner landed in the works, namely Iruka's new assistant, Mizuki.

From the second that Mizuki stepped into the classroom, Naruto could almost smell the negative emotions rolling off the silver-haired chūnin. He didn't particularly care for the way the man glared at him when he introduced himself after Iruka asked them all to tell Mizuki their names, either.

Things went downhill from there. Mizuki seemed to have it in for him whenever Iruka would turn his back, once even throwing a kunai into the desk in front of him when Naruto looked down to check something in his textbook.

The mystery sand-user of the Academy proceeded to turn his attentions on Mizuki soon after that little incident, and the class were treated to an interesting show on how high a man's voice can go when his underpants are full of sand granules which seem intent on rubbing his gentleman parts absolutely _raw_.

-TBS-

"So, Naruto," said Sarutobi to the boy sitting on the other side of the desk, "How's your first month at the Academy been?"

Naruto frowned, "Mizuki-sensei doesn't like me."

"Who?"

"Iruka-sensei's assistant. He doesn't like me, not at all. I could smell the negative emotions from the back of the room. Funny thing… he smelt like snakes too. Is that normal?"

Sarutobi was instantly focussed on the boy as soon as he mentioned the smell of snakes. The chance that the Academy might have been infiltrated by one of his former student's lackeys was too great to ignore, so he turned to an ANBU, "Get Anko Mitarashi on this immediately."

As soon as the ANBU nodded and vanished, Sarutobi turned back to Naruto, "Is there anything else you need?"

Naruto nodded, "Konan-chan said that she finished compiling the list of my new abilities, so I think we'll be coming by with the list of what we need soon."

Sarutobi nodded, "I'll be ready. You may go." Naruto nodded and scampered out of the room.

"Wait, Naruto!"

The small boy reappeared, "Yes, jiji?"

Sarutobi reached into his desk and pulled out four small gourds, setting them on the desk, "I made these for you by cleaning four old sake gourds and lining them with weight and storage seals. Each of those can hold as much sand as one the size of a full-grown man and not weigh more than they should if they were normal empty gourds. You can strap them to the back of your belt and you ought to be able to sit down without them making it uncomfortable for you."

Naruto grinned, walking over and gathering up the gourds, "Thanks, jiji." He left.

-TBS-

Konan was folding an origami swan to go on the coffee table when Naruto entered the house using his new key. "Konan-chan?" he called.

"In here!" she shouted back, deftly scoring a short line along each side of the swan's head to give the impression of eyes.

Naruto entered and sat down, setting the gourds on the table. Konan spared them a glance, "What are those? I'm not letting you drink sake at your age Naruto, you're only eight."

Naruto shook his head, "Jiji made these for me. He says they've got seals on them which make them hold as much sand as one the size of a full-grown man yet they'll only weigh as much as they'd have done were they empty."

Konan smiled, "Those will be helpful. Now go out back and start filling them. You remember where we keep the bags of sand that Hokage-sama gave us."

Naruto nodded happily and ran from the room. Konan finished her sculpture and sat back on the settee, her amber eyes closed and breathing slow and steady… before a loud BANG echoed from the back of the house.

Konan catapulted herself off the settee and headed for the back door, where she found Naruto lying against the wall beside the door looking very dazed, and a ten-foot-wide crater in the middle of the garden.

"Naruto-kun?" she said, "Would you care to explain what just happened?"

Naruto nodded vaguely before standing up shakily and saying, "I was experimenting with a new jutsu idea I had…"

"And what idea was this?"

"It's called Sand Thicket. I form a massive ball of sand in front of me, then make it expand out randomly into long branches, until it resembles a massive spider web or thicket."

Konan thought for a second, "It's a good idea." **(A/N: Just so all of you know, Gaara is not the jinchūriki of the Shukaku in this. I'll leave you guessing as to the identity of the REAL Shukaku jinchūriki. Heh heh heh heh…)**

Naruto grinned, "Thanks, Konan-chan!"

Shukaku's voice popped up in the back of his mind, **"I agree. It's a sound idea, and my previous jinchūriki didn't really use my powers that much… That's what I like about you, Naruto-kun. You handle my power like an expert, and I particularly like some of the things you do with it…"**

Nibi's voice interjected, **"That sounded **_**very**_** kinky, Shukaku-chan."**

Naruto severed the connection, cutting off Shukaku's retort as he wandered over to the bags of sand and began filling his new gourds up. So intent was he on his task that he failed to notice a dog-masked ANBU with gravity defying silver hair crouched on the roof above. Konan did notice, but when she looked up he was gone.

-TBS-

Mizuki was conspicuously absent the next morning. Rumours were flying around the classroom about his disappearance, but Naruto neither confirmed nor denied that he had anything to do with it. Sasuke Uchiha, predictably, called him a dobe when he showed no interest in discussing it with anybody.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a strangled shriek from Sasuke as he received yet another sand wedgie. Naruto was instantly dismissed as the culprit since he had had his head down on his desk with his eyes shut, taking a quick nap.

The Uchiha fanclub immediately got up and yelled for whoever was causing the possessed sand to do what it was doing to show themselves and to "stop tormenting poor Sasuke-kun". Naruto simply wedgied the two of them as well, falling back to sleep as their outraged shrieks filled the classroom.

-TBS-

That evening, Naruto went back to Ichiraku's Ramen for a quick snack with Konan before heading home, only to find Iruka Umino sitting in the stand, looking thoughtful.

"Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka turned to see Naruto standing behind him with a tall blue-haired woman, "Hi Naruto, you here to eat?"

Naruto smirked, "What else would I be here to do, sensei?"

Iruka chuckled, drawing out the chair next to him for Naruto before smiling at the woman, "Are you Naruto's mother?"

Konan shook her head, "My name is Konan Kamihana, and I am his guardian."

Iruka smiled, "It's nice to meet you, Konan-san."

Naruto climbed into the chair and turned to look at Teuchi, "Five bowls of miso ramen, jiji!"

"Coming right up, Naruto!"

"So," said Iruka, after he had placed his own order, "How have you been enjoying your time in the Academy?"

Naruto beamed happily as Konan took the seat on his right and placed her own order before turning to listen, "It's been great, Iruka-sensei! Apart from the phantom prankster…"

Konan picked up on the last bit, "Phantom prankster?"

Iruka nodded, "Yes. Ever since the current class started, somebody has been pranking the students on a regular basis. Oddly enough it only seems to be the Uchiha and the girls that regularly pursue him that are targeted."

Konan forced down the urge to smile, knowing _exactly _who was responsible, "Do you have a suspect yet?"

Iruka misinterpreted her interest, "Oh, don't worry! Naruto's not a suspect. For a start, whenever the phantom prankster strikes he's either asleep on his desk or paying far too much attention to me to possibly be a suspect. I'm looking for students who grin a lot of the time, particularly whenever the prankster strikes, because since they're just Academy students I can't see them being good at hiding their emotions yet."

Naruto smirked inwardly as Yonbi's voice spoke up in the back of his mind, _**"If only you knew, dolphin-boy, if only you knew…"**_

Their meals arrived a couple of minutes later and, after a simultaneous cry of "Itadakimasu!" they dug in.

As soon as the three had finished their meal (in Naruto's case, four other bowls of ramen along with his original one) Konan said their goodbyes and took Naruto home.

-TBS-

**Three years and eleven months later.**

"Naruto Uzumaki!"

Naruto stepped out and formed a handseal, "Clone Jutsu!"

Nothing happened. Naruto muttered something unprintable under his breath and tried again. Again, nothing happened.

"Hn, I'm not surprised, dobe," sneered Sasuke, "As if a loser like you could ever be a shinobi."

Naruto's fingers gave an imperceptible twitch and there was a strangled yelp as Sasuke received about the eight hundredth sand wedgie since they had started at the Academy.

"You have one more chance, Naruto. If you don't form an adequate clone on this try, you fail."

Naruto had an idea, "Iruka-sensei, does it _have_ to be an illusion clone? Could it be another kind of clone?"

Iruka frowned, "I don't see why not, but I don't know why you want to know."

Naruto grinned happily, "Excellent." Folding his arms and closing his eyes, he concentrated for a second before grinning.

It was at that moment that everybody noticed granules of sand floating through the air, coalescing into a single entity which shifted slightly before taking the form of one Naruto Uzumaki.

Iruka's jaw dropped as he realized what he had never figured to be possible in the last three years; _Naruto _was the phantom sand-user.

Naruto grinned as he raised a hand and punched the clone on the arm, "Solid clone. I'd say I pass."

Iruka stared at him for a few seconds before he laughed, "Nice work pulling the wool over our eyes for so long, Naruto!"

Naruto grinned, "It says on the first page in our handbooks that deception is a key tool for shinobi. I simply made it appear that I knew nothing of how the sand was moving on its own and deceived everybody."

A fist flew at the back of his head courtesy of Sakura Haruno. In the blink of an eye, the girl was grabbed around the ankles by Naruto's sand and hoisted into the air, upside-down. Shrieking and cursing, she demanded Naruto let her down, but the blond simply turned and smiled, "Never try and attack me from behind. You never know, next time I could just make a solid wall of sand and let you break your fingers on it."

Naruto didn't wait for a response; he simply clicked his fingers and allowed the clone to collapse into sand once more, before he raised his hand and shifted it as though moulding clay.

Everybody noticed the four gourds on the back of Naruto's belt dispensing their corks before the sand suddenly flew into the air and poured back inside. As soon as the last of the sand was inside, Naruto caught the headband Iruka threw to him, tied it around his forehead and stepped back into line next to Hinata.

-TBS-

Since Naruto had managed to get Mizuki arrested, he had shot up in the class in leaps and bounds. By the end of his first year, he was three places below Sasuke for the title of Rookie of the Year. By the end of the second, he was directly underneath the Uchiha. By the end of the third, he had taken the lead and stolen the title. Now, at the end of his fourth and final year in the Academy, he had been ruthlessly protecting his title from the Uchiha, who seemed determined to prove that he was better than Naruto because he was "an Uchiha elite".

-TBS-

Sasuke strutted arrogantly to the front of the class, _"I have to do better than the dobe! It won't be that hard! Creating a destructive clone from the fire of my Grand Fireball Jutsu should be enough…"_

Naruto, along with Iruka and the rest of the class, watched curiously as Sasuke used his Grand Fireball Jutsu before beginning to try and shape the fire into a recognizable form. So far he had only managed to shape it into a ball of fire a few feet across.

Naruto's eyebrow hitched upwards a little before he realized what Sasuke was trying to accomplish and groaned. Unnoticed by anybody he removed the corks from his sand gourds and began drawing sand from them.

Sasuke smirked as he realized everybody was transfixed. They'd all drop the Uzumaki loser like a hot rock when he impressed them all with his new clone.

Smugly confident in his victory over the dobe, he turned his attention back to the fireball in front of him.

Naruto's eyes widened as he saw the fireball beginning to glow whiter, "EVERYBODY TAKE COVER, IT'S GOING TO BLOW!"

He grabbed Hinata and Ino, who were closest to him, and threw them over the desk behind him before hurdling the desk himself and using his body to protect them as sand poured forth from his gourds.

-TBS-

Sasuke's eyes widened comically as he realized what was about to happen to the fireball he was trying to shape into a clone. He heard Naruto's yelled warning and immediately thought of his own safety. His hands flashing through seals, he bellowed "Kawarimi!" switching himself out with one of the fangirls.

Naruto felt Ino disappear from under him and realized what had happened instantly as he glimpsed the Uchiha's distinctive haircut. Pouring more of his chakra into his sand, he commanded it to surround Ino and protect her while more tendrils wrapped around everybody and yanked them towards the back of the room.

The fireball roiled for a second longer before it exploded outwards, reducing the desks to charred splinters and blowing out the windows and door.

When the dust settled, Iruka and six of the rookies were lying against the back wall, coughing up the sand that had enveloped them in order to shield them from the blast. Iruka looked up to see a singed-looking Naruto standing in the middle of the room, two large cocoons of sand hanging next to him. He was looking furiously at one of them as the top melted away, revealing a struggling Sasuke Uchiha.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Naruto roared at the Uchiha, "SWITCHING YOURSELF OUT WITH ANOTHER STUDENT TO SAVE YOUR OWN MISERABLE HIDE!"

Sasuke drew himself up, which didn't look easy considering he was still wrapped in sand, "I am an elite Uchiha, she is expendable. It would be an honour for her to have died to protect me!"

The entire class stared at the Uchiha in horror before Naruto suddenly swore and commanded the sand to slam his head into the wall, knocking him unconscious. As soon as he was sure Sasuke was out cold, he dropped him unceremoniously onto the floor and walked over to the other cocoon, which melted just as he reached it.

Naruto caught Ino in his arms as she dropped to the floor, coughing slightly, "What happened?"

Naruto scowled across at the still figure by the wall, "Sasuke-teme substituted himself with you in order to shield himself from the explosion. I realized what had happened and wrapped you in my sand to shield you. Sorry if it got in your mouth, I was in a hurry."

Ino stumbled upright on Naruto's arm, "He… he tried to…"

Naruto nodded, quickly catching the girl again as her close brush with death caught up with her and she fainted.

Laying her down on one of the desks, he summoned all his sand back to him and looked around, "Hmm, looks like jiji's going to have a lot more paperwork from this."

-TBS-

Konan came running along the hallway to find Naruto sitting quietly in the waiting area outside the Hokage's office, "Naruto! Are you alright? What happened?"

Naruto coughed slightly; wrapping nine people in thick cocoons of sand in the space of about five seconds had taken it out of him a little. His chakra reserves, while formidable, were not yet so extensive that he could pull off a move like that and not suffer any ill effects, "I'm fine, the Uchiha tried to form a clone out of fire and it exploded. I was forced to use my Sand Coffin to protect everybody, particularly after the scumbag substituted with one of our classmates to protect himself."

Konan sat down next to him, "But are _you_ alright?"

Naruto nodded listlessly, "I used up a fair bit of chakra but otherwise I'm absolutely fine. Ino's in a worse state than I am; she fainted when I told her what Sasuke tried to do." He looked down at the floor, "I was so close to just crushing him to death on the spot for it. I wanted to do it, I wanted to feel his bones give way under my sand."

His distress was evident, so Konan slipped an arm around his shoulders, "It's ok Naruto. You didn't do it, and that's what matters."

"But I would've," said Naruto, "I would've done it."

Konan was about to try and comfort him again when a voice came from further down the hall, "Uzumaki,"

The blond boy and the blue-haired woman looked up to see a tall man walking towards them. As the man stopped in front of him, Naruto noted that he had the same colour eyes as Ino, though his hair was a darker shade of blonde, more ash than platinum.

"Naruto, I'm Inoichi, I'm…"

"…Ino's father." Naruto stood up, "Is she alright?"

Inoichi looked grave, "She's fine; still in shock but the med-nin who had a look at her says she'll make a full recovery."

Naruto smiled, "That's good. I was worried when the med-nins took her away."

Inoichi nodded before smiling, "I read Iruka Umino's report. According to him, your first instinct on seeing that there was danger was to grab my daughter and throw her out of danger. Then when the Uchiha substituted with her to protect himself," there was a bitter note in his voice as he said the name, "you went back into the danger zone to rescue her."

Naruto shook his head, "Anybody would've done it."

Inoichi shook his head, "But you aren't anybody, Naruto. You put yourself in harm's way to protect my daughter, and that isn't something I, my wife or the rest of the Yamanaka clan can easily forget."

The door beside them opened, and the secretary said, "The Hokage will see you now."

Naruto nodded and turned towards the door before looking at Inoichi, "Coming?"

Inoichi blinked before following him into the office.

-TBS-

"So that's what happened, is it?" said Sarutobi calmly when Naruto had finished his story. Behind Naruto, Konan had her hands over her mouth and Inoichi was looking livid.

Naruto nodded, "Yes. Once I realized there was danger, I moved to get everybody out of the immediate vicinity, taking care to protect both kunoichi in close proximity to me as best I could. Since I was so close to the two of them when Sasuke made his move, I knew immediately what he'd done and moved to both make sure he couldn't do anything else that might jeopardize anybody else's safety and protect Ino."

Sarutobi smiled, "You did very well, Naruto." He sat back in his chair, "Now there is a slight problem. When I spoke to him, Iruka refused point-blank to pass the Uchiha on principle. No doubt the council will raise hell over that. That means that one of the genin teams is a man short. Therefore the Uchiha is going to be given specialized tuition in proper ethics and teamwork and one of the teams is going to comprise only two genin."

"With respect, Hokage-sama," said Inoichi suddenly, "Is it at all possible for my daughter to be placed on a team with Naruto here? After he saved her life today, I was able to talk to her and one of the things she told me was that she had changed her mind; she now wanted to be on a team with the genin who protected her even when he didn't need to."

Sarutobi scratched his chin. It was a good idea. If Naruto captured a target with his abilities, then the Yamanaka could scan his memory. All they would need other than her would be another person to balance them out. Now to work out who that would be…

"Anyway, Naruto, I think you deserve a little reward for protecting your classmate in such a fashion. As such, I give you this;"

He handed Naruto a small scroll. "I know you cannot perform an adequate Bunshin, though you can compensate for that through your sand manipulation. Therefore I feel that with your chakra reserves, you would be most suited to using this particular kinjutsu. It's called the Shadow Clone Jutsu. It creates solid copies of the user which will last for one blow before dispelling. When they dispel, anything they've learnt will be transferred back to the original. It was initially developed as a technique for spying, sending a solid copy into a dangerous place with no threat to the original person. However the high chakra usage, since each clone halves the user's chakra, meant this jutsu was reclassified as a B-rank kinjutsu."

Naruto looked down at the scroll in his hand for a second before tucking it into his belt pouch, "I could've used this quite a while ago, but it's cool all the same. Thanks, jiji."

Sarutobi smiled before turning to glare at the paperwork piles on his desk. It might have just been his imagination, but were they growing bigger before his eyes?

-TBS-

Naruto headed home with Konan after paying a visit to Ino to see how she was feeling. Ino's mother wouldn't stop thanking Naruto for protecting her daughter, and it was only when Inoichi stepped in that she allowed him to say goodbye to Ino and leave.

Halfway there, Konan noticed that Naruto had stopped and was looking into the window of a weapons shop. Walking back up to him, she saw a rack of naginata and a small sign proclaiming a new version of the common naginata which could have the blade retracted, making it look like a simple bo staff.

"A bo staff," she murmured, causing the boy to look up at her and nod.

"Do you want to learn to use one?"

Naruto seemed to think for a second before he said, "I've learnt to utilize a lot of new abilities in the last four years. I've learnt to extend my chakra into a shroud around the outside of my body to protect myself from harm amongst other things. But the one thing I haven't ever learned is how to fight an enemy using a weapon. I read up on them a few times and the idea of learning to use a staff weapon is pretty interesting for me."

Konan smiled down at him, "Well, I heard that your jōnin-sensei will give you another test tomorrow to see if you're worthy of becoming a genin. Pass that test, and I'll buy you a weapon and find somebody to teach you to use it."

Naruto grinned happily, "Really?"

Konan nodded and Naruto whooped as they started moving again, heading home.

-TBS-

"Hokage-sama,"

Sarutobi looked around from where he had been standing looking out the window to see Hiashi Hyūga entering the office, "Hello, Hiashi-san. Are you here to discuss your daughter's team?"

Hiashi nodded slightly and took the seat in front of the Hokage's desk before waiting for Sarutobi to take his own seat. As soon as he did however, Hiashi cut straight to the chase, "You already know I came here to discuss my daughter's team, but the truth is I also came here to discuss the incident today."

Sarutobi nodded, "Yes I have had numerous parents coming in to discuss that very matter already."

Hiashi nodded, "Then you know that I'm somewhat concerned for my daughter should she end up on a team with the Uchiha. If he were to find himself in such a situation a second time and decide to substitute with my daughter as he did the Yamanaka heiress today… I can make no guarantees I would not kill him on the spot."

Sarutobi nodded, "Yes, I have received a similar request from Inoichi Yamanaka today on behalf of his daughter. Am I to understand, then, that you wish for your daughter to be placed on Naruto's team?"

Hiashi nodded, "I read Iruka Umino's report; from what I know everyone has. The report stated that Uzumaki's first instinct on realizing there was danger was to move my daughter and the Yamanaka girl out of harm's way before moving to protect the others. When the Uchiha substituted with the Yamanaka, Uzumaki immediately went back into the blast radius in order to rescue her. The Hyūga value such self-sacrifice, even if we may not appear to. As such I would like Uzumaki to be placed on a team with my daughter, if only so that he can protect her."

Sarutobi gave the man a long look, "You don't outwardly seem to care for her, but you still do."

Hiashi nodded again, "She is my heir."

Sarutobi nodded, picking up a sheet of paper that Hiashi recognized as being the team placements, "Very well, I'm confident I can grant that request."

Hiashi stood up, "You have my thanks, Hokage-sama," and left.

-TBS-

Everybody was treating Naruto with a great deal of respect the next morning. Everybody except Sasuke, who wasn't present.

Iruka, still looking as battered and bruised as the rest of them; walked in five minutes after they had all gathered, escorting a sullen and even more battered-looking Sasuke.

Ino, who was sitting next to Naruto in the back row as he usually did, drew closer to him when she saw the person who had tried to sacrifice her to protect himself. Naruto, noting this, had to resist the urge to give Sasuke a sand wedgie, knowing that everybody knew he was the sand-user in the class now.

"Now," said Iruka, holding up a clipboard, "Listen carefully for your teams."

"Iruka-sensei," said Naruto, holding up a hand, "Why is Sasuke-teme here? I was under the impression that he was going to be forced to return to the Academy to learn teamwork and something, or at least that's what jiji told me."

Iruka nodded as Sasuke glared at Naruto, at least until he spotted a tendril of sand rising over the Uzumaki's shoulder and averted his eyes, "Yes, I was told that as well. However it seems the council forced the issue and had him be passed anyway."

"Just goes to show, loser," said Sasuke, ignoring everybody except Sakura glowering at him for his stunt the previous day, "When you're an elite Uchiha, you can get away with _anything_. I'm sure the Yamanaka whore is fine."

More tendrils of sand rose over Naruto's shoulders, "You know teme, you seem to forget that what I did to you yesterday was me holding back. If I had wanted to, and I most certainly _did_ want to, I could have crushed you to death in that sand cocoon with you powerless to stop me. I could've jammed spikes of sand into your eyes and extinguished your precious Sharingan _forever_. Think about that; the so-called "dobe" who, I would add, beat you for the title of Rookie of the Year, can destroy the so-called "elite Uchiha" with just a twitch of his fingers. Now shut up and listen. I want to hear what my team is."

Sasuke noticed rising killing intent around the room, but simply snorted and turned back to the front of the room.

"Now," said Iruka, deciding not to reprimand Naruto because he was as angry at Sasuke as the rest of them, "Team 10 will comprise Chōji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Shino Aburame. Your sensei will be Asuma Sarutobi."

Iruka continued, "Team 9 is still in circulation from last year, so Team 8 will comprise Naruto Uzumaki, Hinata Hyūga…"

The girl in question went bright pink as she heard that she'd be on a team with the object of her affections as Iruka continued once more, "…and Ino Yamanaka. Your sensei will be Kurenai Yūhi."

"HEY!" shouted Kiba, "How come he gets two girls?"

"Because," said Iruka before Naruto could respond, "Both Hinata's and Ino's parents came forward and requested the teams be changed to accommodate this, their reasons being that Naruto's first action yesterday was to protect both girls from danger. Both parents felt that if there was anyone capable of protecting their daughters from harm should they be overrun on a mission, it was Naruto."

Kiba shut his mouth and Iruka started speaking again as Naruto gestured to Hinata to come over and join him on his desk, "Team 7 will comprise Sakura Haruno, Kiba Inuzuka and Sasuke Uchiha. Your sensei will be Kakashi Hatake."

Setting down his clipboard he looked around at them all, "All of you have been excellent students, and I wish you good luck in your shinobi and kunoichi careers."

-TBS-

Naruto, Ino and Hinata were getting to know each other a little better when the door opened and a tall woman with long black hair and red eyes entered, "Hello, I am Kurenai Yūhi. Where are the members of Team 8?"

Naruto, Hinata and Ino raised their hands quietly, and Kurenai beckoned to them. They followed her out of the room, and as Naruto closed the door he heard Kiba shout, "Not only does he get two kunoichi but he gets a hot sensei as well? What the hell!"

-TBS-

"Alright, as I already mentioned I am Kurenai Yūhi, I will be your sensei from now on. I want each of you to tell me your likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams for the future. You first." She pointed at Naruto.

Naruto grinned, "My name's Naruto Uzumaki, I like ramen and hanging out with my friends and family. My dislikes include people who judge me based on things outside my control and any people who dare threaten my friends and family. My hobbies are watering plants, taking walks and learning new jutsu. My ambition… to become Hokage, and then I can protect all my friends and family!"

Kurenai nodded, approving of the boy's mindset before nodding to Ino, "You next."

Ino sat up, "My name is Ino Yamanaka, I like learning my family's mind jutsu and Naruto-kun. I dislike the Uchiha," she spat on the ground after she said his name, "and to a lesser extent Sakura. My hobbies include working in my parents' flower shop and shopping. My ambition… to prove I can be a strong kunoichi, and to make my family proud of me."

Kurenai smiled; she approved the platinum blonde's outlook as well. She was also pleased to see there was almost no sign of any psychological problems stemming from her near-death experience. She nodded to the last member of the team, "Now you."

Hinata sat up a little straighter, "My name is Hinata Hyūga. I like Naruto-kun and cinnamon rolls. I dislike people that judge others unfairly or think they are better than everyone else for no reason. My hobby is pressing flowers and my ambition is to unite the main and branch families of the Hyūga clan and abolish the Caged Bird Seal."

Kurenai looked around at the three of them once Hinata had finished speaking. "Fine. Now, there is one more test I have to do on you three before you can become genin. Be at training ground #8 by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, and do not be late."

Naruto headed home to find Konan waiting for him holding a tape measure. When he asked what she was doing, she stated that she needed to measure him so that she knew what size his staff weapon had to be if… when… he passed the genin test the next day.

After Konan had got the measurements she needed, Naruto sat down to examine his new jutsu. After checking the scroll over and memorizing its contents (he had discovered during his second year at the Academy that he had a photographic memory), he lay down in bed and went into a meditative state, landing in his mindscape and beginning to practice the jutsu.

-TBS-

Kurenai arrived on the training ground to see Naruto sitting on the ground with Ino and Hinata, talking quietly. All three leapt up when the jōnin approached.

"Alright," said Kurenai, looking around at the trio. "Your test is to retrieve something from somebody," she held up a picture of a man wearing a mask, with his headband pulled down over one eye, "Do any of you recognize this man?"

Naruto shook his head, as did Hinata, but Ino spoke up, "My father's told me about him, it's Kakashi Hatake, the infamous Copy-Ninja."

Kurenai nodded, tucking the picture away again, "He is also the last remaining member of the Yondaime Hokage's genin team. Your job is to get a certain object off him by any means necessary."

Naruto grinned, punching one fist into his other hand, "What do we have to get?"

Kurenai smiled at his enthusiasm before holding up a picture. Hinata and Ino both blushed on seeing it, recognizing it as being their fathers' favourite book series. Naruto, on the other hand, jabbed a finger at it, "Hey! That's the pervy stuff that jiji always reads!"

Kurenai blinked, "You know this?"

Naruto nodded emphatically, "It's the Icha Icha series. I can't stand it myself."

Kurenai stared at him before a thought crossed her mind, _"I like this kid."_

She smiled, "As I was saying, your task is to get this book off Kakashi by any means necessary. He's bound to be on the look out for activity; he should be doing his own genin test right now, so you will have to work together to get the book."

Naruto stood up, "Brilliant! This'll be a snap, let's go do it!"

"…But this is only the second part of your test…" she said.

Naruto stopped, "Sorry?"

Kurenai grinned, noticing as she did that Anko's usual sadistic attitude seemed to be rubbing off on her, "Your first test is to break into Kakashi's house and steal all his Icha Icha without being detected or caught in the act. It'll probably be loaded with traps, so you'll have to be careful…"

Naruto gave a mirthless laugh, "Kurenai-sensei, who do you think you're talking to? I managed to hide the fact that _I _was the one controlling the sand that kept pranking Sasuke Uchiha and his fan-club for four whole years, though I regret including Ino-chan in that little group…"

Ino waved a hand, "It's alright. Back then I probably deserved it. Besides, I think the most harmful thing you ever did to me was tickling my feet every so often. Sakura and Sasuke both got it much, _much_ worse."

Naruto shrugged, "I guess that's true. Shall we do this then?"

-TBS-

Yūgao Uzuki was patrolling the rooftops on her watch when she spotted three kids crouching beside a door into what she realized was Kakashi's house.

Raising a hand to the hilt of her katana and moving to intercept them, she was startled when Kurenai appeared before her, "Wait, Yūgao-chan."

Yūgao blinked, "Kurenai? What are you doing here?"

The genjutsu mistress smiled, "Observing my genin on their genin test."

Yūgao looked down, "Are they yours then?"

At Kurenai's nod Yūgao dropped her hand from her katana and sat down to watch alongside her friend, "So what do you have them doing?"

Kurenai smiled evilly, "We're going to steal Kakashi's Icha Icha collection, then I'm going to have them steal the book he's currently carrying. Then, when they've successfully gotten away and given me the book, we can use them as leverage over Kakashi."

Yūgao laughed, "Anko's really rubbing off on you, isn't she?"

Kurenai laughed as well as she sat down and looked towards her new team, "She isn't. I just happen to keep my sadism to a more controlled level than she does."

Yūgao smirked behind her mask before looking towards the genin as well.

-TBS-

"How much longer, Naruto-kun?" whispered Ino.

Naruto had one hand pressed against the wooden door and his eyes shut. Hinata was helping him pick the lock with his sand by looking into the door with her Byakugan.

"A little to the left, Naruto-kun," Hinata whispered to the blond sand-user, "Push a little bit left and you'll open the door."

Naruto obeyed Hinata's instruction, only for his enhanced hearing to pick up a dull click, "Got it!"

He smiled, giving the door a little push. It swung back smoothly, revealing a long hallway. "Let's go," he muttered. The two girls nodded, advancing over the threshold and shutting the door softly behind them.

Kurenai smiled, "Game on."

-TBS-

Naruto was the first to encounter a problem. He had been creeping down the hall with Ino and Hinata on either side, looking furtively around when his foot had activated a pressure plate. Before any of them could react; a barrage of kunai and shuriken shot out of the ceiling at them, causing Naruto to fling his arms upwards, summoning a wall of sand to his defence.

The kunai and shuriken thudded into the wall of sand and dropped to the floor as Naruto summoned the sand back to his gourds. "I'm such an _idiot_," he muttered, "I should've guessed there'd be traps."

Hinata activated her Byakugan, "There is a trap fifteen feet directly in front of you, which seems to be linked to another launcher at eye-level on the right hand side."

Naruto's response was to form a ball of sand in his fingers and prepare to throw it, "Where?"

Hinata threw a kunai into the carpet just in front of the pad, and Naruto tossed the ball.

A few seconds later there was a bang and a blizzard of senbon exploded out of the launcher, burying themselves in the wall on their left. They walked past the trap, Hinata retrieving her kunai and Naruto his sand.

It took a further fifteen minutes for them to get through all the various traps that Kakashi had strung up _and_ locate the room which contained the books Kurenai had given them a picture of. When they finally arrived, Naruto directed Ino to look in another room off the one they were in while he and Hinata began sealing the books into a scroll Naruto produced from his belt.

Ino returned a couple of minutes later and whispered something about brain soap to Naruto as they sealed the last book and made their exit.

Kurenai intercepted them outside and took the scroll as though there was something disgusting on it before leading them off.

Yūgao watched her friend lead her genin team out of sight, smiling as she resumed her patrol and cackled to herself at the thought of what she, Anko and Kurenai would have the perpetually-tardy ex-ANBU captain doing under threat of having his precious books damaged.

-TBS-

Kakashi was just surveying his genin team (a battered and unconscious Kiba and Akamaru, an infuriated and buried-up-to-his-neck Uchiha and an unconscious fangirl who succumbed to the weakest of genjutsu), when several tendrils of sand suddenly fired at him from out of the trees on his right.

Leaping away, he was just quick enough to avoid a barrage of Jyūken strikes before forming a shadow clone and substituting with it to get out of danger.

-TBS-

In the trees, Naruto saw Kakashi's shadow clone get wrapped in his sand and dispel itself and clicked his tongue, activating his Echolocation Jutsu.

The Gobi had taught him this particular jutsu; all he had to do to use it was channel a little chakra into his tongue and then click it against the roof of his mouth. The resulting sound-waves would bounce off the surrounding terrain and whatever else happened to be in the vicinity and return to him. The resulting fluctuations in the echoes would alert him to any enemies or ambushes ahead.

Now he exploited the fact that Kakashi did not know of this skill to use it to pinpoint his location. Creating three shadow clones, he said, "Go that way, cut him off," knowing Kakashi could hear him.

To Hinata and Ino, who had by now appeared out of the trees, he signalled and pointed. They nodded and followed him.

It was a simple tactic: beat the grass until the bird flew. Kakashi had no idea what he was up against.

**(A/N: Man this took a while. Then again writing all five of my fics has been a little difficult lately. As of now, Kunai stands at 4.1k words, Jutsu at 3.9k and Maelstrom at 9.4k. Blade, I haven't started writing the next chapter yet as I wished to concentrate on these. If I had to make a guess, I would say that Maelstrom will be next to update, followed by Jutsu depending on how things go. For now however, I will bid you all adieu. Until next time, my loyal fans (read: minions), this is Leonineus signing off!)**


	3. Running the Gauntlet

The Bijuu Sage

Chapter Three: Running the Gauntlet

**(A/N: Howdy folks, Leonineus here with another epic chapter to Bijuu Sage! I decided I'm going to work on translating jutsu into Japanese, mainly because to pick one example, "Wind Release: Wind Blade" sounds much less cool than "Fūton: Kaze no Yaiba". This is going to happen in all my stories from now on, and I may decide to go back and replace all the English jutsu names in my previous chapters while I work on the new chapters. Anyway, enjoy!)**

Kakashi was panting behind a tree when somebody suddenly roared, "SABAKU RŌ!" (Sand Prison) and he was forced to substitute at top speed to avoid being caught in a dome of sand.

He wasn't given a moment's respite however, as several massive spikes of sand shot out of the trees nearby and threatened to wrap around his limbs and bring him crashing to the ground.

Flipping away from the sand and dodging behind a tree, he found himself pressed between a swarm of Jyūken strikes and taijutsu blows from the Hyūga girl and the Yamanaka girl respectively. Blocking the Yamanaka's high kick at his head, he ducked under a chakra spike that would have disabled his left arm at the shoulder and planted his own foot between the girl's ribs, knocking her backwards.

As more sand fired towards him, Kakashi disabled the Yamanaka and hurtled out between the trees in a bid to escape. He quickly found himself back in the clearing where his three genin were; Kiba just coming around and Sasuke still buried up to his neck while Sakura was still out of it. Rolling into a crouch, Kakashi turned back as more sand shot out of the trees on all sides.

He readied himself to use a Kawarimi… but then the sand suddenly stopped and fell to the ground. Applause made him turn his head.

The Uzumaki who had been the source of all the trouble was walking out of the trees with his team-mates at his side, clapping his hands softly, "Nice work, Kakashi-san. Anyone else would've been caught by now. I seem to be low on chakra now…"

He leaned forwards and took a deep breath. Kakashi noticed his knees were shaking slightly, another sign that he was telling the truth about being low on chakra. Readying a kunai, Kakashi said, "Why are you interfering with my genin test? Who put you up to this?"

Naruto smiled, straightening up and raising his hands, suddenly back to normal and with the light of battle in his eye, "Oh Kakashi-san, have you forgotten one of the cardinal rules for ninja? Deception is the key in our profession, and now you've made a crucial mistake. Sabaku Shigemi! (Sand Thicket)"

His hands flew into an odd seal with his fingers interlaced like tree branches, and Kakashi immediately realized that he had been outmanoeuvred and outclassed by a _genin_ as the sand on the ground around him suddenly exploded into life, long spikes arcing into the air and blossoming into even more offshoots, quickly forming a dome above Kakashi that he knew he only had one way out of.

Even as he moved to activate his Kawarimi, Naruto's hands parted and then clasped together again, "Sabaku Rō!"

Before Kakashi could finish his Kawarimi, the sand thicket around him suddenly exploded inwards, wrapping him in a thick layer of sand that restricted any ability to move or form hand seals.

Naruto grinned, his hands moving to a final rat seal, "Sabaku Shibari!"

Kakashi now found the sand melting away from his body, but instead tendrils of it wrapped around his torso, pulling his arms behind his back but holding his hands apart. Struggling and quickly finding he couldn't get free, Kakashi stopped trying to escape.

Naruto held the rat seal, but averted his eyes towards Ino long enough to say, "Ino, get the package."

Kakashi's single eye widened as the platinum blonde walked over to him and rummaged in his pouch, finally tugging out his Icha Icha volume and stepping away. A second later there was a swirl of leaves and Kurenai appeared. "Here you go, Kurenai-sensei," said Ino happily, handing her the book, "We pass now, right?"

Kurenai didn't respond at first, "Naruto, you can let him go now."

Naruto gladly dropped the rat seal he had been holding for the last couple of minutes and twitched his fingers, summoning the sand back to his gourds.

Kakashi straightened up, his single visible eye narrowed as he watched Kurenai pocket his precious book, "And what are you planning to do with that, Kurenai-san?"

Kurenai smiled at him, a benign expression that somehow conveyed terrible malevolence in the same instant, "I don't know. I will have to confer with my associates first on what we shall do."

She turned to the three genin, "Congratulations, as of now all three of you are genin." She disappeared before any of the three could say anymore.

Naruto noticed a vein pulsing over Kakashi's visible eye and gulped. Grabbing hold of the girls, he made a seal and all three vanished in a sand shunshin.

Kakashi stared stupidly at the spot where they'd vanished for a moment before wailing at the sky, "NOOOOO!"

"Um, sensei?" said Kiba's quiet voice from behind him, "The timer went off about half an hour ago, so do we get lunch or not?"

Kakashi's burning gaze flayed Kiba alive as he hissed, "Wake Sakura and dig up Sasuke. I have some frustration to vent and you three are just the ticket."

Kiba whimpered slightly before obeying his sensei's instructions.

-TBS-

"So why did you summon me away from my dango?" asked Anko irritably as she walked into Kurenai's flat.

Kurenai's response was to point at the pile of Icha Icha volumes sitting on the side. Anko raised an eyebrow, "Didn't realize you were a budding pervert, Nai-chan…?"

Kurenai shook her head, "My new genin team were assigned, as a test of their abilities, to first break into Kakashi's house and steal all the Icha Icha he had stored there, and then fight the man himself for the copy he was carrying."

Anko stared, "You assigned three genin to take down _Kakashi_? And they succeeded?"

Kurenai nodded, smiling, "They're a very surprising trio."

Anko dropped to her knees, "I will _pay you_ if you let me take them from time to time! Who do you have?"

"Ino Yamanaka…"

"Hmm, might be good to work on if she's still like I hear she is."

"She isn't… I'll explain in a few minutes… Hinata Hyūga?"

"That timid little thing? Well this _will_ be fun! Who's the last one, another kunoichi?"

"No… Naruto Uzumaki. From my observations he was doing most of the work during their fight with Kakashi."

Anko's jaw dropped, "You have a single boy and two girls, and the boy took on Kakashi Hatake, stole his porn and lived? How did you get that LUCKY?"

Kurenai laughed, "The truth is, I was actually expecting the Inuzuka and the Aburame with Hinata. However certain events on the graduation day meant that wasn't happening."

"I heard about something going down at the Academy, something involving the Uchiha trying to create a clone from fire and Uzumaki protecting everybody."

Kurenai nodded, "Well what exactly happened was that Uzumaki had been steadily pranking his class using some kind of telepathic control over sand with nobody any the wiser about the culprit's identity. He revealed it on graduation day by creating a Suna Bunshin. The Uchiha, who'd been his main target, got jealous and tried to create a clone by manipulating the fire from one of his family's jutsu, the Gōkakyū no Jutsu if I recall from the report correctly."

Anko blinked, "How did that go down?"

Kurenai shook her head, "Badly, by all accounts. Uzumaki was the first to realize the danger; he grabbed Ino Yamanaka and Hinata Hyūga, who were on either side of him, and threw them over the desk behind him before hurdling it himself and using his own body to protect them. A few seconds later the Uchiha apparently realized his own peril and used a Kawarimi, switching himself out with the Yamanaka under Uzumaki. He realized what had happened in seconds and immediately returned to the danger zone to protect her, yanking everybody to the back of the room and wrapping his sand around them to protect them all before wrapping Yamanaka in his sand as well, at which point the condensed fireball exploded. Allegedly the classroom was absolutely gutted and Uzumaki ended up being checked over by the med-nins because he was looking a little singed when the ANBU came on the scene."

Anko looked puzzled, "But by all accounts the class would've been enough for each team to comprise two males and a female, so why do you have two?"

Kurenai held up a hand, "I was getting to that. Apparently both Inoichi Yamanaka and Hiashi Hyūga came forward and requested the teams be changed so that Naruto Uzumaki would be on a team with their daughters. Inoichi cited that Ino herself had asked if it were possible, and Hiashi said he felt that Uzumaki was fully capable of protecting his daughter."

Anko sat down in a chair, musing over what she'd heard, "What happened to the Uchiha after that?"

Kurenai's lip curled as she sat in a chair as well, "The council apparently forced the issue and allowed him to graduate. He was there today, buried up to his neck on the training ground where my genin team took on Kakashi."

Anko chuckled, "Hmm, serves him right. Shall we start thinking on what we'll make Kakashi do then?"

Kurenai smirked, "Indeed. But we need to wait for Yūgao first."

Anko nodded, and they settled in to wait.

-TBS-

Naruto had just dropped Ino and Hinata home so they could tell their families the good news about passing their genin test and was walking down the main street of Konoha when he caught a glimpse of blue hair ahead of him.

On closer inspection, it proved to be Konan, leaving the weapon shop they had looked into a few days previously with a long thin package in her hand. Naruto crept up behind her, "BOO!"

Konan jumped and dropped the package, which made a loud clang when it landed on the ground, before she realised who had shouted and frowned, "Please don't do that, Naruto."

Naruto grinned, picking up the package in his hand, "What's this?"

He moved a finger towards the seam, but Konan stopped him, "Did you pass your genin test today?"

Naruto beamed and nodded, so Konan withdrew her hand, "Then feel free."

Naruto slipped a finger under the seam and tugged. The wrappings fell away like a snake shedding its skin, revealing a gleaming metal staff with a narrow lower end shoed with steel while the other end was adorned with a large kanji for nine.

"What's that you've got, brat?" said a curious voice from behind Naruto, before a hand reached over his head and yanked the staff from his hand, "That's way too nice for you to have!"

Konan moved to retrieve the staff but Naruto gestured for her to stop, turning to face the man as he gave Naruto an unpleasant smile and turned to walk off with the staff.

The man in question never really found out what actually happened next. One second he was walking away from the demon brat with his new prize, the next second he was hanging upside down by his ankles as the demon brat walked forwards and tugged the staff from his fingers.

"What did you do, _brat_?" the man spat, trying to get free of whatever was holding him up.

Naruto smiled, the end of his staff hitting the street's paved surface with a solid _clunk_, "Retrieved what's mine."

The man again tried to pull his feet free of what was holding them before he gave up and snarled, "What did you do to my feet?"

Naruto smirked, before his hand twitched almost imperceptibly and the man crashed back to the floor, raising his head just in time to see a stream of sand moving behind the boy's back as he continued to smirk, "I told you; I retrieved what's mine."

The man's spluttered retort was drowned out as Naruto turned back to Konan and said, "Can we go home now?"

Konan nodded, casting the man a cold look as they walked around him and strode off down the street.

-TBS-

All three women instantly noticed Naruto's new staff when they arrived for training the next morning. Kurenai cut right to the chase, "Naruto, would you mind explaining to me how you developed these various skills? Sand manipulation is specific to Kaze no Kuni and I am fairly sure you used some kind of sound-based jutsu yesterday. As your jōnin-sensei, I really need to know the full extent of your abilities."

Naruto nodded, "I understand, but this is something along the lines of an S-class secret so if we go back to my home I can explain everything there."

Kurenai nodded and Naruto held out an arm, "Hold on, I can transport all of us."

The three kunoichi took hold of the proffered limb and Naruto concentrated.

A few seconds later, all four disappeared in a swirl of sand granules.

-TBS-

They landed outside Naruto's home, whereupon they all let go of him and he tottered drunkenly for a second before recovering. "Naruto-kun, are you alright?" Ino said concernedly.

Naruto nodded, leaning on the fence for a second and taking a deep breath, "Yeah… using my Suna Shunshin is more difficult when transporting a jōnin as well as two genin than I anticipated."

Kurenai frowned, "I'm sorry?"

Naruto straightened up and began to explain, "You see, that particular skill takes varying amounts of chakra depending on the reserves and mass of whatever I'm transporting."

As the implications hit Kurenai and killing intent started leaking out, Naruto realized he'd said something wrong and amended his statement, "I didn't mean it quite like that. What I meant was that the larger the transported object or person, no wait that's even worse…"

Kurenai shook her head, "It's alright Naruto, just continue your explanation."

Naruto swallowed before continuing, "Because I'm the primary user of that technique, I can transport myself effortlessly. Transporting two fellow genin along with me is also fairly easy, but the trouble comes when I try to transport somebody like you, Kurenai-sensei. Not only are your chakra reserves quite high, but there's also a large difference in height and, forgive me for being blunt, weight as well. As such I'm going to have a little more difficulty since I have to transport both. It takes a lot of concentration, which is why I don't like using my Suna Shunshin too often when transporting other people. If I'm not careful, I could reconstruct them when we drop out of the Shunshin and leave behind some important body part or even their chakra network."

He tapped the tip of his staff on the ground in thought for a second before he continued, "Transporting Ino and Hinata, for example, is quite easy for me since neither has chakra reserves of any significant size _yet_; but transporting you, with jōnin-level reserves, is more difficult since there's such a glaring difference. Transporting myself is easy since I literally know myself inside and out _and_ I have a trump card or nine to help hold me together."

Kurenai stared at the boy for a second, _"Is he referring to the Kyūbi? I wasn't aware it could use sand. Fire, yes, but not sand. The "trump card" must be referring to its tails."_

Naruto suddenly smiled, "Where're my manners, if I might ask the three of you to come inside?" He turned and walked up the path before ringing the bell.

Kurenai was broken out of her thoughts when the door opened, revealing a tall woman with amber eyes and a paper flower in her blue hair, "Naruto-kun? I thought you'd be at team training, and who are your friends?"

"Konan-chan," said Naruto happily, "I'd like to introduce my teammates, Hinata Hyūga and Ino Yamanaka, and our sensei Kurenai Yūhi."

Konan turned her eyes on the three women before smiling and nodding her head, "Konan Kamihana, Naruto's guardian."

Kurenai held out a hand, "It's nice to meet you, Konan-san."

Konan smiled, taking Kurenai's hand and shaking it, "Likewise, Kurenai-san."

-TBS-

They all sat down in the sitting room, and Naruto leaned his staff against the side of the chair before saying, "For Ino-chan's and Hinata-chan's sake, I'd better start from the beginning. I trust you both know the story of what happened on the tenth of October, twelve years ago?"

Ino and Hinata looked at each other before Hinata said, "Of course, Naruto-kun. The Kyūbi attacked, and the Yondaime killed it at the cost of his own life."

Naruto smiled, "That isn't quite true, Hinata-chan. The truth was that as the Kyūbi, like all bijuu, was merely an entity comprised solely of chakra with a certain level of sentience attached. As such, it was impossible to kill by conventional means. The only way to stop its rampage was to seal it away. Therefore the Yondaime used a newborn baby, which was the only possible container for the Kyūbi's power since a baby's chakra network hadn't yet achieved a set size, to contain the bijuu and put an end to its rampage through the Leaf. Now, do either of you know when my birthday is?"

Ino smiled, "October tenth. I remember Iruka-sensei making everybody sing Happy Birthday each year. But why…?" Realization entered her eyes and she gasped, "The Yondaime… sealed the Kyūbi… in you?"

Naruto nodded, "Nice to see that brain of yours is at work, Ino-chan!" She blushed and he continued, "Yes, the Yondaime used me as the Kyūbi's jinchūriki. Didn't you ever wonder about why I was so quiet all the time, why people gave me a wide berth in the streets and whispered "demon", "monster" and other such insults behind my back? Why you would sometimes hear parents telling their children to stay away from me?"

Ino thought about it. It was true; she _had_ sometimes wondered why people had such an attitude towards her fellow blond.

Naruto sat back in his chair, "I knew about the Kyūbi since I was six years old, when the orphanage kicked me out citing that "a demon could take care of itself" at that age. Almost as soon as I left the orphanage gates, I found myself being pursued by an angry mob shouting about finishing the Yondaime's work. They finally cornered me in an alley and beat me into unconsciousness."

Hinata covered her mouth in horror and Ino looked ill. Kurenai's mouth thinned and she reminded herself that there was now no way she could ever find out the identities of those responsible so she could put one of her worst genjutsu on them.

Naruto folded his arms, "I soon found myself standing in a large sewer, in front of the biggest pair of barred doors I had ever seen. Walking up to them, I looked through, and there I saw her." A smile spread across his face, "She was tall, with waist-length red hair and nine long fox tails. Small fox ears poked out of her hair and when she smiled, her violet eyes sparkled at me."

Kurenai frowned, "The Kyūbi… is female?"

Naruto nodded, "Not so much the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox as the Nine-Tailed Demon _Vixen_. Actually, she's not a demon at all. She's a kitsune."

Kurenai resisted the urge to dance; wouldn't the chauvinists quail when they found that the most powerful bijuu was in fact female as well? Fighting to keep herself dignified, she coughed and said, "So you know about the Kyūbi, and she's female. What's next?"

Naruto smiled cheerfully, "Jiji, the Hokage that is, found me unconscious and bleeding and took me to hospital. As soon as I recovered, he got me a home in an abandoned apartment complex in town, with an ANBU on permanent guard to deter any unwanted callers. Then, one and a half years later, something happened."

He looked over at Konan as she entered with tea, accepting the proffered cup and taking a sip, "Delicious, Konan-chan. Anyway, it turned out there was an organization, working in the shadows, which wanted to collect all the bijuu for some purpose or other."

"The Akatsuki," said Konan calmly, finishing hanging out teacups to the other women in the room and taking a seat with her own cup in her hands.

Naruto nodded at Konan, "Konan-chan used to be part of them, but after something happened she changed sides."

Kurenai leaned forwards, "What happened?"

Naruto smiled, "It seemed they had collected all of the other bijuu, so they sent two of their number after me. From what I heard after I returned to Konoha, they blew up my apartment complex to make it look like I'd died in the blast, so that nobody would look for me."

The three kunoichi in the room that weren't Konan were transfixed as Naruto took another sip of his drink before continuing, "They carted me out of Konoha and took me off to their base somewhere. Heh, they tried to keep me in line but I extracted my pound of flesh and sanity from those bastards for kidnapping me. I kept trying to escape, I think I almost got away about eighty times before they finally lost their tempers and tied me up to stop me escaping again."

Konan giggled, "Oh indeed, Deidara and Sasori were so angry when they got to the base."

Kurenai frowned, "Then what happened?"

Naruto looked over at Konan, who took up the story, "We started using the jutsu we'd used on the other jinchūriki to extract their bijuu. As with all the others, it took three days, but finally it was over. Nagato, the leader of the Akatsuki and then my husband, began talking about how we would use the bijuu as a weapon to bring about peace, when the statue we had sealed the bijuu into suddenly exploded, releasing them. I watched as the Hachibi no Kyogyū stomped on my husband and killed him instantly, before the Nibi no Nekomata hit me with one of her tails and threw me into the wall, knocking me unconscious while the other members of Akatsuki fled."

She stared down into her cup before Naruto took over, "I don't know what happened next, but I do know this. After the bijuu broke out of the statue, I was about semi-conscious so I could just see them above me. I could hear Kyūbi-chan speaking, but then I blacked out again."

"I found myself in my mindscape. There, I met nine women. One, I knew already to be Kyūbi-chan. The other eight, however, I didn't know, so they introduced themselves to me as the Ichibi no Shukaku, Nibi no Nekomata, Sanbi no Kyodaigame, Yonbi no Saru, Gobi no Irukauma, Rokubi no Namekuji, Nanabi no Kabutomushi, and the Hachibi no Kyogyū. In short, I'm no longer just the Kyūbi's jinchūriki. I'm the jinchūriki of all nine bijuu!"

Kurenai stared blankly at him, "So that's how you have all these skills? The sand manipulation, the sound jutsu, all of it is from the bijuu?"

Naruto nodded, "I learnt to manipulate sand early on. I was already using it when I entered the Academy, about two weeks after returning to Konoha. I got that from Shukaku-chan."

"And the sound jutsu?"

"Gobi-chan."

Kurenai nodded before she said, "What else do you get from the bijuu?"

Naruto counted off on his fingers, "Ummm… Best guess is I should eventually be able to use all five nature transformations, as well as a number of secondary transformations, namely… Yōton (Lava Release) from Yonbi-chan… Awaton (Bubble Release) from Rokubi-chan… Jinton (Dust Release) from Nanabi-chan and Ranton (Storm Release) from Hachibi-chan!"

Konan gave him a sharp look, "You didn't tell me about having Ranton when I asked!"

Naruto shrugged, "Hachibi-chan didn't tell me about it for some reason."

"_**The reason I didn't tell you the first time you asked was because I wasn't yet convinced that you were sensible enough to use it. I'm still not entirely convinced, for that matter."**_

"_Aww, I love you too Hachibi-chan." _**(A/N: The truth is that I had actually not thought about adding Storm Release when I released that chapter, Storm Release is a late addition at the urging of my good friend Hyrulian Hero Akai, who I can always rely on to help me with anything Naruto I'm unsure about using. Try his stories out, they're all awesome especially his latest, which was inspired by this story.)**

Out loud he said, "Apparently she wasn't convinced I was mature enough. Apparently she _still_ isn't entirely convinced."

Kurenai smiled while the two girls giggled at the insulted expression on Naruto's face, before the red-eyed jōnin folded her arms, "So apart from the elemental releases and the sand manipulation, what else can you do?"

Naruto smiled, "Nibi-chan gives me exceptional flexibility and agility, as well as a couple of Katon ninjutsu to use. Sanbi-chan relies on genjutsu…" he noticed Kurenai's eyes widening and said, "I'll see if I can work out a way you can talk to her if you like. Now, you already know what I get from Yonbi-chan… Gobi-chan allows me to use a couple of sound jutsu, one of which revolves around using echolocation to find out information about my surroundings. That was what I used yesterday."

He tapped a finger against his lip in thought for a second before smiling, "Rokubi-chan's main ability is her Awaton, but she can exploit various Suiton ninjutsu to expand her arsenal. Nanabi-chan gives me super strength and incredibly tough skin; I can also manipulate bugs and read vibrations in the ground to find out where somebody is in relation to me. Hachibi-chan allows me to spit ink, which I can either use as a secret trump card to blind an opponent, but I can also use it to write with. Konan-chan says that'll be useful for fūinjutsu."

Kurenai nodded, "And the Kyūbi?"

Naruto frowned, "Kyūbi-chan's gifts include massive endurance and an enormous chakra reserve, both of which I'm already known for. She grants three main ninjutsu, enhanced skill with another type of jutsu, and a unique skill specific to her which I will only ever be able to use when I have a full chakra cloak on."

Kurenai leaned forwards; this sounded interesting, "What are the three ninjutsu?"

"They are called the Fire Stream, the Sonic Roar and the Twister. As I said to Konan-chan, all are fairly self-explanatory. The enhanced skill is when it comes to henges and other such things. Somewhat appropriate, considering kitsune are supposed to be masters of shape-shifting and so on. The last thing, the thing I can only use when wearing a full chakra cloak, is her Kitsune Fire. I'm pretty much parroting what she says here; I get on all fours and form nine tails behind me, each of which is then wreathed in flames of chakra. I touch the tips of the tails together and that forms a fireball which then explodes, unleashing an eighteen-foot-wide torrent of fire in the direction I'm looking. That's apparently her most destructive jutsu, even better than the Bijūdama (Tailed Beast Ball) which they can all perform. I'd rather not use that particular technique until I really, _really _need to however; I rather like the village as it is and not as a smoking crater."

Kurenai scratched her chin in thought for a second, "Can you allow the bijuu to roam free from your body?"

Naruto nodded, "I'm fairly sure I can, but there isn't any way to regulate their size since they aren't actually sealed or anything. They just like to live in my body. The only way I could allow them a little freedom from my body would be to release all their chakra from my body. Not only would that weaken me severely, but I'd probably scare the crap out of everybody in the village at the same time."

"_**That isn't quite true, Naruto-kun…" **_Kyūbi's voice spoke up in the back of his mind, _**"There **_**is**_** a way that you can do that, but it will be immensely dangerous for you to attempt and I don't want you trying it for a while yet, alright?"**_

"_Alright. What is this way?"_

"_**When we were created as the Jūbi, Kami gave us a sword which held the majority of our power. With it, we could seal away our power and take a human form in order to move around, and then release the power to take our true form. When he divided us and created what we are now, the sword split up as well, as it was an extension of our mind and soul. With these swords, we could take human forms and move amongst your kind in safety, then release our powers at a later date just as we did when we were the Jūbi."**_

"_That sounds interesting. What happened to your swords?" _**(A/N: Before anybody asks, yes I used the idea of the Zanpakutō from Bleach for this, but they won't have any unique abilities. They're basically just vessels to hold large quantities of each bijuu's power; sharp vessels that can kill people but admittedly just vessels. Sorry about that.)**

"_**We lost them. Over the years each of us was sealed and lost our swords with no idea how to get them back. I lost mine when I was sealed into my first jinchūriki, and I still don't have a clue how to retrieve them. I have heard whispers that mysterious energy readings have been found across the Elemental Nations; nine in total, but I don't know if it's what we've been looking for. It seems like far too much of a coincidence…"**_

"_Don't worry, Kyūbi-chan. I'll find those swords, and you can walk among humans again in peace."_

There was a long pause before Kyūbi replied, _**"…Thank you, Naruto-kun."**_

"_No problem. Where are these energy readings, anyway?"_

"_**Hmm… the bottom of an extinct volcano in the north of Hi no Kuni… that's the strongest… in descending order: the top of a mountain in Kaminari no Kuni; an abandoned cave network somewhere in Tsuchi no Kuni; a valley in Mizu no Kuni; a large lake somewhere around Ta no Kuni which has two of the signatures, oddly enough; a large forest near the eastern border of Tsuchi no Kuni; another cave complex in Kaminari no Kuni and finally somewhere in the sands of Kaze no Kuni."**_

"_Hmm, we'll have to look those out sometime. Maybe I could persuade Kurenai-sensei to come to the extinct volcano sometime."_

"_**That works. Now I believe that blonde friend of yours is trying to get your attention."**_

Naruto snapped back to reality to find that Kyūbi was right; Ino was waving a hand in front of his eyes, "Are you alright Naruto-kun? You sort of spaced out for a minute there."

Naruto nodded, "Kyūbi-chan was just telling me of a way that they can take normal human forms and walk around like we do, but it involves gathering certain items which are spread across the Elemental Nations."

Kurenai leaned forwards, "Where?"

Naruto counted off on his fingers, "One in Hi no Kuni, two in Kaminari no Kuni, two in Tsuchi no Kuni, one around Ta no Kuni, one in Mizu no Kuni and the last one is in Kaze no Kuni."

Kurenai frowned, "Eight locations? Shouldn't there be nine, if it's one item to each bijuu?"

Naruto frowned, "You're right; good guess that it's one for each bijuu. Also, the one around Ta no Kuni has two signatures apparently."

Kurenai scratched her chin, "Hmm, it sounds interesting. I must admit to being eager to speak to the Sanbi if she is an extensive genjutsu-user. She may be able to shed light on new ways of using genjutsu…" She suddenly had a dreamy look in her eyes before snapping back to attentiveness, "I may be able to persuade the Hokage to allow us a little time to investigate this extinct volcano you mentioned, as well as the signatures in Ta no Kuni. However I think you should hold off on the Kaze no Kuni and Mizu no Kuni signatures until after you reach chūnin and the Kaminari no Kuni and Tsuchi no Kuni signatures ought to wait until after you make jōnin."

Naruto nodded, understanding that reasoning, "Alright then. Can we make a compromise? I show you all my abilities that I currently possess and we do about two months' worth of D-ranks before we ask about the trips to the extinct volcano and Ta no Kuni."

Hinata spoke up, "I've heard of that mountain. My father's spoken about it before. Mount Shikazan, isn't it?"

Kurenai nodded, "I believe that is the name, yes."

Naruto grinned, "Brilliant! When do we start D-ranks?"

Kurenai's eyebrows rose, "You're inordinately keen to begin working on D-ranks Naruto."

Naruto smirked, "I have a trick which means we can get through tons a day. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" His hands flew into a seal and five copies of himself appeared behind him.

Kurenai blinked, "How much chakra do you have?"

Naruto scratched his jaw as the clones dispelled, "Good question. Best estimate, I could make enough Kage Bunshin to make a straight line from here to Suna and back again and still have enough to drown Konoha in clones."

Kurenai blinked again, _"He has that much chakra? If I could get it to a good enough level of control he could be so good with genjutsu…"_

Konan glanced at the clock and stood up, "Would you four like some lunch?"

Naruto smiled and said, "Konan-chan's meals are to _die_ for."

Kurenai frowned, "I wouldn't like to impose…"

Konan shook her head, "It is alright. I enjoy having guests, and as you are Naruto-kun's team you are welcome in our home."

Hinata and Ino looked towards Naruto, who smirked and gave them a pleading puppy-dog look which made both cave instantly. Kurenai looked down, saw that her two kunoichi students were now thoroughly hooked and sighed, "Very well. I would like to stay as well."

Konan beamed, "Thank you. I will go and make some lunch immediately. Naruto, if you would get our guests some drinks?"

Naruto jumped up, "What would you like?"

Kurenai ran a hand through her hair, "A little sake please. I think I might need it for your demonstration."

Hinata and Ino thought for a second before answering in perfect unison, "Fruit juice, please," before realizing they'd answered at once and grinned.

Naruto dashed off to get the drinks.

Ino and Hinata sat down to have a brief conversation about Naruto, "A jinchūriki… and that's the reason why nobody in the village likes him!"

Hinata bit her lip. She had always wondered why her bodyguard had always advised her to stay away from Naruto when they were small children, even after he rescued her from bullies. Even after she had explained what had happened, her bodyguard had advised her to stay away from Naruto.

Ino herself had quite foolishly taken the opinions of everybody else on as her own views, so she had judged Naruto without really getting to know him at all. Instead she had gone for the obvious "cool kid". Then, a couple of days previously, she had had her priorities in life shaken violently. The boy she liked tried to sacrifice her to protect himself and the boy she always should've treated better protected her almost at the cost of his own life.

-TBS-

After lunch, they proceeded out back for the demonstration.

For fifteen minutes, Naruto proceeded to demonstrate all the various ways he could manipulate his sand before allowing it all to return to his gourds. Kurenai had been making notes on a borrowed notepad for the entire quarter of an hour, her red eyes occasionally flicking up to observe Naruto.

Naruto next demonstrated the Katon ninjutsu that Nibi had taught him, bathing the air above the garden in fire for a whole minute before closing his mouth and cancelling the jutsu.

Immediately after the demonstration of his Hankyōteii no Jutsu (Echolocation Jutsu), Kurenai asked if he knew any of the Sanbi's genjutsu yet, to which he responded that he didn't yet have the chakra control for them. Because he had so much chakra, he explained, he had to do more chakra control exercises than anybody else his age. Even though he had been doing more chakra control exercises a day than anybody else would usually do in a month, he had only had himself to rely on.

Kurenai understood this reasoning; so she let the subject drop and instead asked if he had learnt any jutsu pertaining to his affinities yet. Again the answer was no, but Naruto did demonstrate the ability to spit ink at a target on the fence and hit dead-centre without much difficulty.

"So far," he said, "That's all I've managed. The bijuu tell me that the nature transformations are the hardest things they possess to master. Sand manipulation was the first thing I learnt because it's such a versatile ability to have, you saw that during the fight with Kakashi; the Hankyōteii no Jutsu I learned because it's relatively simple and because it can be very good to use later on in my career."

Kurenai tapped the pencil she was making notes with against her lip in thought for a moment before she said, "Naruto, how many clones can you make?"

Naruto frowned, "Suna Bunshin or Kage Bunshin?"

"Kage Bunshin."

Naruto scratched the back of his head in thought, "Hmm, I'd say a fair number. Didn't you ask this question earlier?"

Kurenai smiled, "Make a Kage Bunshin and walk to the end of the garden please. Stand with your back to me, your eyes shut and fingers in your ears."

Naruto frowned, but did as he was told.

As soon as Kurenai was sure that Naruto had his eyes shut and ears blocked, she grabbed the clone by the front of its jumpsuit and punched it hard in the face, dispelling it.

Naruto jumped, whirled around and pointed at her, "Hey, why'd you do that, sensei?"

Kurenai laughed, "Naruto, how do you know what I did if you had your ears blocked and eyes shut and were facing away from me?"

Naruto opened his mouth, "I… oh, hang on…"

Kurenai nodded, folding her arms, "The thing about Kage Bunshin is that anything they learn during their 'life', you learn when they dispel. That includes any jutsu they practice."

Naruto's eyes lit up as the inspiration hit him, "So that means I can practice my chakra control using my clones?"

Kurenai clapped her hands together, "Well done, Naruto. When you think about it, you're uniquely suited to using that particular training technique. You have insane amounts of chakra which can survive being halved multiple times, as the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu divides your chakra equally depending on how many you create. Wait!" she said suddenly as Naruto began to form the seal for Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, "Please hold off on that until we can get an accurate idea for how many clones you can make."

Konan glanced over at her, "I wouldn't presume to tell you your job, Kurenai-san, but is that wise? For all we know, and from what I remember of the individual jinchūriki, they all had a lot of chakra. If all those individual chakra reserves are being combined into Naruto's, he could be able to create enough clones to cover Hi no Kuni completely. Actually come to think of it, if we ever fought Sunagakure; all we'd have to do is have Naruto make enough clones to surround the place and make them do a Sabaku Sōsō on it. He'd end the battle in about five minutes without any losses on our side."

Kurenai scratched her jaw, "I agree. Alright then, Naruto? Please refrain from trying to find out your limit with the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, because as far as we know you don't actually have one. Instead, only use a certain number of Kage Bunshin at a time and don't go over that limit unless you _really_ need to, understood?"

Naruto nodded, "Alright then. How does a thousand sound?"

Kurenai swallowed as Ino and Hinata giggled at Naruto's idea of 'moderation', "How about a hundred?"

Naruto thought it over. A hundred was still a high number, "Alright. Only a hundred, except in special circumstances."

Kurenai smiled and patted him on the head, "Good boy."

Naruto picked up his staff which he had brought outside with him and tapped it once against the ground, ejecting the naginata blade for twisting sharply and throwing it like a javelin. The weapon embedded itself through the chest of a training dummy.

Kurenai raised her eyebrows; _only twelve and already learning how to use weapons?_

Naruto noticed her look, "Er, sorry. I forgot I hadn't demonstrated my staff's secret to you yet. I guess I got too wrapped up in showing you my new skills."

Kurenai smiled, "It's alright. I appreciate your initiative."

Naruto gave her an eye-smile. Kurenai coughed, "I think we should return to the training grounds now. We need to start training again."

Konan smiled, "You can stay here if you like. The garden is spacious enough for Naruto-kun and his team-mates to train in peace and you won't have to negotiate for training fields since as I recall there is competition for the best ones in Konoha?"

Kurenai frowned, "How did you know that?"

Konan smiled, "I've lived here for the last four, nearly five, years. In that time I was forced to take a remedial class to teach me what I was missing by having been taught by Jiraiya-sama and not taught in any shinobi or kunoichi Academy. One of the things my teacher mentioned was that he didn't like how there was always very fierce competition for the best training grounds."

Kurenai nodded, then some of what Konan had said registered, "You were taught by Jiraiya of the Sannin?"

At Konan's nod she frowned, "Did he ever display some more of his more… inappropriate… tendencies around you?"

Konan smiled, "He never really dared. I have a kekkei genkai which allows me to use paper ninjutsu in battle. Do you know how much pain having one thousand paper cuts can cause the average human male even if they are a shinobi?"

When Kurenai shook her head, Konan smiled happily, "That was the question I posed to him the first time he showed that little perverted glimmer in his eye. He got the point after that."

Kurenai laughed, "I like the way you think. Would you like to come out for a drink with my friends one night? I'm confident they would all love to meet you."

Konan smiled and bowed her head, "That would be welcome. Now about my offer?"

Kurenai thought for a second before she turned to Naruto, Hinata and Ino, "What do you three think?"

Naruto smiled, "I like the idea, but my opinion might be a little biased. Hinata-chan? Ino-chan?"

Hinata and Ino looked thoughtful before Hinata said, "I have no complaints. Ino-san?"

Ino looked around the garden with a practical eye, "It seems big enough. There are plenty of training posts for us to practice taijutsu on, plenty of targets to use our ninjutsu against. I'm in favour of the idea."

Kurenai smiled before turning to Konan and nodding, "We accept."

Konan beamed, "Excellent. Would the four of you like something else to eat?"

Kurenai shook her head, "We should really begin training now. Naruto, do you have any particular jutsu you want to learn at the moment?"

Naruto scratched his jaw, "I can think of something I need to do. Flexibility exercise with Nibi-chan, her fire ninjutsu…"

Ino frowned, "Flexibility?"

Naruto grinned, "That basically means that my Bunshin throw things at me and I have to avoid them without actually moving from the spot. It involves a lot of ducking and bending."

Ino thought about it for a second and then suddenly got a nosebleed. Kurenai noticed and knocked her on top of the head, "I know he saved your life, but no perverted thoughts, you're better than that."

Ino put a hand to her head and whispered, "Yes, Kurenai-sensei…"

Konan laughed, "I'll go back inside and leave you to it."

Naruto flexed one hand, forming a dozen Suna Bunshin holding their staffs. Six soft clicks echoed across the garden as the clones struck their staffs against the ground and ejected their naginata blades. Naruto then formed around three dozen Kage Bunshin and directed them to the other end of the garden to practice other things.

The original Naruto moved into the middle of the garden, "Bring it, boys."

The Bunshin attacked, swinging their blades at Naruto. Naruto smirked as he bent smoothly backwards, allowing their blades to pass harmlessly over his head.

Hinata and Ino blinked, the blood rising in their faces as they watched. Kurenai smiled, "You two should see your faces right now." Both jumped and turned to look at her.

Kurenai smiled, "Alright, this is what I want the two of you to do…"

-TBS-

The Kage Bunshin were busy practicing a taijutsu style Naruto and Shukaku had come up with during his third year at the Academy and had only just succeeded in getting some work done on. It incorporated his sand control into the style; he formed arms from his sand and struck from multiple angles with them. Working in conjunction with the sand arms was the basis of Naruto's style, though he could use it without the sand arms if he needed to.

The original Naruto was still bending and flexing under his clones' attempts to behead him. Ino and Hinata were practicing their own taijutsu while Kurenai supervised them, occasionally looking over at Naruto to see how he was doing.

Finally, breathing a little harder than normal but still grinning broadly, Naruto stood up and cancelled the ninjutsu holding the Suna Bunshin together. They crumbled into sand which, with a twitch of Naruto's fingers, returned to his gourds.

Next, Naruto turned to the Kage Bunshin, one of whom nodded at him and signalled the others. As one they summoned the sand they were practicing with back to their gourds and dispelled.

Naruto closed his eyes for a second and smiled before turning to see Kurenai looking at him, "What, sensei?"

Kurenai shook her head, "I shouldn't really be surprised by now, but I must admit I've never seen anybody dispel that many Kage Bunshin and not die of informational overload. Actually, I've never seen anybody make that many clones full-stop."

Naruto smirked, "I contain nine cute and fluffy bijuu. Since when have the standard rules applied to me?"

"_**I'm not fluffy," **_said Sanbi's voice inside his head, closely followed by the voices of Gobi, Rokubi and Nanabi grunting in agreement.

"_To me, you might as well be," _said Naruto.

"_**Isn't he cute when he's trying to make you all feel better?" **_said Yonbi.

There was a muffled _smack_ from inside Naruto's head and Naruto guessed that Kyūbi had just smacked Yonbi on the back of the head for teasing the other bijuu.

Ignoring the muffled remonstration going on in the back of his mind, Naruto twisted sharply on the spot and took a shot at one of his new jutsu.

"Katon: Ittai no Kokyū!" (Fire Release: Hell Breath)

The girls turned to watch as Naruto opened his mouth wide and coughed, sending a huge mass of flames shooting across the garden and hitting dead centre on one of the targets on the other side. The fire burned straight through the target and then flickered out; leaving only a smoking hole which quickly repaired itself thanks to the seal array Konan had designed and put on the back.

Kurenai raised her eyebrows at Naruto's accuracy, "Is that a new one?"

Naruto smiled, "Not really. That's Nibi-chan's signature ninjutsu; I just haven't had a chance to work on it yet. My plan is that I'm going to work on each set of jutsu at a time, since they're bound to get more complex according to how many tails the user has."

Kurenai nodded before saying, "So you're not going to start on Bubble, Dust and Storm for a while yet?"

Naruto shook his head, "No. At the moment I'm very nearly finished mastering all of Shukaku-chan's abilities and I'm making quick progress with Nibi-chan's thanks to my Kage Bunshin. As soon as I'm done with hers I'll start on Sanbi-chan's techniques. From there I'm going onto the Yōton techniques with Yonbi-chan, and so on."

Kurenai nodded again, "Then you'd better get to work, shouldn't you? I want you to be able to use at least the Yonbi's techniques before the Chūnin Exams."

Naruto saluted, "Yes, sensei!" His hands shot to the cross seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

"…under a hundred, remember," said Kurenai in an amused tone. Naruto sighed, counted the clones, scowled and dispelled one, "Happy, sensei?"

Kurenai did a quick head count and came up with exactly ninety-nine. She smiled, "Yes, I'm happy. Now you can get to work."

She turned back to Hinata and Ino, who had stopped to take a quick break, and began to issue instructions as the clones began to divide themselves up and start working again.

They had stuff to do.

**(A/N: You like? Sorry this chapter was mostly filler but the next chapter will jump forwards to the end of the two months doing D-ranks just before they head off to Mount Shikazan (which literally means "extinct volcano", interesting piece of random trivia there) and the lake in Ta no Kuni which you will probably guess correctly to be the lake central to the plot of the Three-Tails Arc in Shippūden.) **

**(A/N: I also need to ask all you wonderful readers for help. As I'm just one guy, (as much as I like to think I am Kami of fanfiction, what self-respecting fanfiction author doesn't think they're Kami?) I need help with coming up with cool jutsu for Naruto's Yōton, Awaton, Jinton and Ranton. Come to think of it, I need jutsu for pretty much all the bijuu except Shukaku. If you want a full list of what Shukaku gives to Naruto, look up Gaara on Narutopedia and that's basically it except for the Sand Thicket. This need is especially true of his four secondary releases, since we haven't yet seen that many of each in canon so far. If you submit a jutsu, I need the Japanese translation (not kanji, preferably) and English translations of the jutsu name, what bijuu it's for and what it does. Hopefully you guys can help me out.)**

**(A/N: And finally, in a quick story update, Kunai is now at 5,400 words and Jutsu is at 4,713. Both Maelstrom and Blade are currently below one thousand words. Sorry it's taken over a month to get out the next chapter of Kunai, I'm working as fast as I possibly can. Anyway, I'll be going now. This is Leonineus, saying GOODNIGHT!)**


	4. Excursions

The Bijuu Sage

Chapter Four: Excursions

**Leo: Thanks in advance to those of you who came up with ideas for jutsu, they helped a lot. Anyway, in this chapter we will unveil the vaunted mediums for the bijuu… I wonder what they will be?**

**Naruto: *aims a smack at Leo's head from behind* Oh be quiet, you know **_**exactly **_**what they'll be.**

**Leo: *poofs into smoke and reappears behind Naruto with a kunai against the back of his neck* I know, but I need to keep the people guessing don't I?**

**Naruto: Not me. I'm the star of this story.**

**Leo: *smirks* That could be subject to change depending on your attitude. You never know, I could do a Kishimoto and make this story about Sasuke…**

**Naruto: You wouldn't dare! *summons fists of sand and chases Leo***

**Leo: Enjoy the chapter everybody!**

"So where are you going again?" asked Inoichi Yamanaka.

His daughter gave him a reassuring smile, "Just up north to Mount Shikazan to pick something up."

Hiashi, walking beside his own daughter, frowned, "What could you want to get up there?"

Naruto, walking ahead of them next to Kurenai, cast the red-eyed jōnin a worried look. She understood what he was trying to say, and took over, "We're being issued a mission to collect a certain something from a house on the slopes of Mount Shikazan, I don't know what it is. Hokage-sama said we would know it when we saw it."

Hiashi nodded, seemingly satisfied by this response.

The last two months of D-ranks that Kurenai had had the genin of Team 8 do had gone quite quickly. She had observed that, during training sessions, Naruto's efforts to learn his jutsu inspired the two girls to spectacular heights. Hinata had been spending training sessions at home mercilessly beating her cousin into a bloody pulp (Naruto's suggestion after hearing about how said cousin always used to belittle her when they were children had somewhat lowered his opinion of Neji Hyūga) while Ino had been methodically working her way through every Yamanaka clan jutsu her father could throw at her.

Naruto had, in the past eight weeks, mastered Sanbi's skills and moved on to Yonbi's. So far he had managed to do three Yōton jutsu: the Yōgaizā (Lava Geyser); the Yaketsuku Hashira (Searing Pillars), which caused pillars of lava to erupt from the ground where Naruto wanted it to; and the Yōgan Kunshu (Lava Overlord), which fired a spectacular amount of lava from the ground which then coalesced into a demonic creature from the underworld, with a pair of ram's horns, wings and cloven hooves for its feet. In one hand it wielded a mighty blade of flames and in the other a many-tongued whip. This creation was then controlled by Naruto using his own body like a giant puppet. The only drawback of this jutsu was that any damage done to the construct (and for obvious reasons, nothing fire-related worked on it) was then transferred to Naruto.

Needless to say, they had put the lava-puppet through an extremely brutal series of tests to make sure it functioned properly. They had even called in a gang of chūnin and jōnin to help test it. By the end of that particular episode Naruto was bruised, burnt, blackened with soot and otherwise moving fairly gingerly.

Konan had not been happy when Naruto came home looking marginally less singed than he had immediately following the test, but had been pacified when Naruto reminded her about his abnormal rate of healing and went to lie down for a while.

-TBS-

As promised, Kurenai had persuaded the Hokage to allow them to leave the village so that they could go investigate Mount Shikazan; therefore they now stood together at the gates of Konoha waiting to set off.

Konan hugged Naruto, "Stay out of trouble, won't you?"

Naruto smirked in a very foxy way, "I always do, kaa-chan! I like the quiet life, you know me." A few seconds later he sniggered and hugged her back, "Ok, couldn't keep the straight face."

Konan smacked him gently on the back of the head, "Baka, I'm serious. Take care out there."

Leaning a little closer she whispered, "Akatsuki are still out there, even if the leader is dead. Some of the people in Akatsuki would stop at nothing to get their hands on you and use you for their own ends, Naruto. Be very careful while you are at Mount Shikazan, alright?"

Naruto sighed, "Yes, kaa-chan."

Konan smiled and kissed him on the forehead, "Go on then and good luck."

Naruto grinned, turned and shot out of the gate in a swirl of sand, his team-mates right behind him.

-TBS-

It took five minutes but finally, Kurenai yelled in exasperation, "Naruto, slow down! We don't all have your stamina!"

"_**Yeah, which means that unless you sort that out you're gonna have a problem in later life with those two…" **_Yonbi's voice echoed in Naruto's head and caused him to blush.

"_Yonbi-chan!"_

Out loud he said, "Oh, sorry. Here…"

His fingers twitched sharply, and suddenly all three kunoichi were scooped off the ground by his sand and carried along in what were effectively seats.

Ino laughed, "I should really be a little irritated at this, but considering this is Naruto I'm gonna let it slide. This sand is really soft anyway."

Kurenai sighed, "Either I'm going to have to make him slow down or get you two to the level where you can run at the same speed."

Hinata chuckled, "Getting Naruto-kun to slow down? Pfft, good luck with that sensei."

-TBS-

They were moving rapidly for about fifteen minutes before Naruto suddenly stopped and dropped to one knee as the sand chairs deposited their charges gently on their feet and then funnelled back into Naruto's gourds.

Kurenai stepped over to her only male genin as he pressed a hand flat against the floor and closed his eyes, using Nanabi's capabilities to read the vibrations in the ground, "We're being followed, Kurenai-sensei. Four, I'd say…"

Sand poured from his gourds and filtered out into a thin layer in the grass before he beckoned to his companions and leapt into the trees.

-TBS-

It took another five minutes, but finally four figures dropped into the clearing. Naruto, who crouched on a branch above with Hinata and Ino on either side, clenched his fists as he beheld Sasuke Uchiha looking disdainfully around the clearing.

"Well?" sneered the Uchiha, "Which way did they go?"

Kiba looked down at Akamaru, who barked once, "I don't know. Akamaru says that he can smell Naruto's chakra all around this area…"

Akamaru sniffed the ground another time, then looked up and gave a series of urgent barks.

Kiba's eyes widened, "It's a trap! Get out of the clearing!"

He was too slow, as from above there was a sudden roar of "SABAKU RŌ!"

Sand poured up the ankles of the three genin (and one ninken) and wrapped around them, completely immobilizing them but leaving their heads free. Kakashi was fast enough to substitute out of the way, leaving a poor defenceless log to get wrapped in sand in his place.

Naruto dropped off the branch and swung around it like a monkey bar to land in a crouch in the clearing, "Why are you guys following us?"

Sasuke's lip curled, "An Uchiha walks where he wants and does what he wants, now unhand me!"

Naruto didn't unhand him; he turned to Kakashi, who was leaning against a nearby tree, and asked, "Did jiji tell you to follow us?"

Kakashi eye-smiled, which didn't convince Naruto one bit, "I'm afraid my genin took off from our training field when they heard that you had left on a mission of your own and I followed them to make sure they didn't run into trouble."

Ino, who had by this point got down form her tree with Hinata and come over to stand on either side of Naruto, "By "your genin", you mean "Sasuke", right?"

Kakashi nodded.

"So let me get this straight," said Kurenai as she walked up to them, "One of your genin heard that another team got a mission outside the village before his team did, rank regardless, so he abandoned his training to try and muscle in on their mission?"

Sasuke sneered, "That's correct. Now you, the dobe and the dobe's whores can return to Konoha because the _real _ninja have this well in hand."

Naruto pulled him within arm's reach with his sand and backhanded him, "Insult me if you will, but _never_ insult my friends or sensei!"

Kurenai folded her arms, "Sasuke's abandoning his training to follow after another team on a mission could be interpreted as a willingness to forget his duty to Konoha."

Sakura spoke up for the first time, "That's ridiculous! Sasuke-kun would never abandon Konoha!"

Naruto scowled, "Kakashi, get him back to Konoha. I'm going to tell jiji about this when we return from our retrieval mission."

He allowed the three genin back onto their feet before turning and striding out of the clearing with Kurenai and the other two in tow.

Kakashi beckoned to his genin, but Sasuke ignored him and followed Team 8.

-TBS-

"Well," said Naruto happily, "There's Shikazan. We just need to find the entrance to the cave."

He clicked his tongue reflexively as he stepped forwards before stopping dead and whipping around, "Defying orders yourself now, Kakashi?"

Kakashi and Team 7 stepped out of the trees. Kakashi eye-smiled at Naruto, "Of course not Naruto, we were just concerned for the safety of your team."

Naruto gave him a dry look, "Sasuke followed us didn't he? He followed us and you didn't even say anything. You're not making a very good case for being a suitable jōnin-sensei, you know. A _decent _jōnin-sensei would've beaten Sasuke up the wall to make him obey orders by this point."

Kakashi's single eye narrowed at Naruto, but he said nothing as Kurenai said, "Kakashi Hatake, you and your genin team are hereby ordered to return to Konoha. I will be following up on this after I return with Team 8 and the package."

She turned away and stalked off, "Come on, let's go."

-TBS-

"I'd guess this is it," said Naruto quietly as he gazed at the door in front of him.

Ino blinked, "What makes you say that?"

Naruto glanced over at her, "The large kanji characters for nine and the little picture of a fox would indicate…"

Ino sighed, "Okay, okay."

Hinata reached for the door handle, but Naruto suddenly caught her wrist, "Don't. Kyū-chan says that if you don't have her yōki, the genjutsu around the door will lock you into a genjutsu of your worst nightmares. Chances are you'd be a drooling vegetable in minutes, according to her. I'm the only one who can enter that place."

Hinata nodded and withdrew, while Naruto himself reached out and touched his hand to the middle of the door. The door flared red and what seemed like a ripple flew out from the point of contact. Naruto withdrew his hand, caught hold of the handle and pushed.

The door swung inwards without as much as a creak, revealing a dark hallway. Naruto squinted into the hallway, his night vision inherited from Kyūbi allowing him to pick out large murals along the corridor. Stepping forwards he said, "Cover me, I'll just go get the sword."

He strode through the door and closed it behind him.

-TBS-

He walked slowly down the corridor until he reached another door, which he opened and stepped through.

Naruto found himself standing in a comfortable-looking sitting room with deep red walls and murals all around him. Kyūbi's voice sounded in the back of his mind, _**"Okay, this is my home. My weapon should be towards the back, closer to the volcano's core."**_

Naruto nodded and walked through the rooms towards the back, finally locating a thick steel door engraved with a large nine-tailed fox. _**"This is it!"**_Kyūbi's voice was slightly excited, _**"Ready?"**_

Naruto touched his hand to the door, causing a ripple of red chakra to flow out from the point of contact. As he pulled the door open, a wave of heat hit him right in the face and made him stagger backwards.

"_Cl__ose to the volcano's core? How about right on top of it?"_

Kyūbi giggled inside Naruto's head, _**"It's nice to know I can surprise you, Naruto-kun."**_

Naruto sighed, sweat already pouring off his body as he stepped through the door and allowed it to swing shut behind him. Ahead of him, he could see a narrow bridge of rock leading to a huge pillar of granite; the roots of which disappeared into the churning, roiling magma far below the bridge. On the top of the pillar, Naruto could see a plinth of blood red rock, with an eerie orange light illuminating it and causing a subtle glow to the stone.

He stepped forwards and began to cross the bridge, eventually reaching the plinth and looking down upon it.

In a recessed gap in the centre of the plinth lay the most beautiful sword Naruto had ever seen in his life.

All that came to Naruto as he looked upon the weapon was that it was obviously fit for a true queen. The sheath was made of crimson metal with deep-golden designs laid in ornate arcs and curves all over its vermillion surface.

As his fingers wrapped around the weapon's sheath and lifted it from the recess, his other hand grasped the hilt and drew the blade from its resting place. The flickering light from the torches all around the room and the lava below played over the silvery steel, its sharpness belied by the seeming frailty of the metal.

All the same, he could tell that this was a weapon perfectly honed, flawlessly balanced, wrought for the purpose of ending a foe's life, designed so that the slightest cut would ease the blade through flesh and sinew as easily as a knife passing through soft butter.

Naruto tilted the wakizashi, causing the light to illuminate the kanji engraved along the length of the blade as though they were wrought of pure fire, _"I am the Kyūken, the eternal flame and everlasting fire."_

"_**This is it," **_said Kyūbi's voice softly, _**"The medium in which I stored the majority of my power."**_

Naruto slid the weapon back into its sheath and turned to face the door of the chamber.

-TBS-

As Naruto stepped through the door of the chamber, a hand entered his field of vision and yanked the wakizashi from his fingers, "I'll take that. It's better that the package is protected by the highest-ranking jōnin on this mission!"

Naruto turned to glare at Kakashi, "Considering you aren't _supposed _to be on this mission, it would be Kurenai-sensei who is the highest-ranking jōnin. Anyway, that belongs to me."

Sasuke snorted, "Like anything _you_ own would be important enough for a retrieval mission!"

Naruto's fingers twitched as a fist of sand buried itself into Kakashi's sternum before another plucked the sheathed wakizashi from his fingers, "Well believe it or not, teme; this sword is a lot more valuable than you. And anyway, this was just meant to be a milk run for _our_ team. Yours just tried to muscle in on it."

"In that case," said Sasuke, holding out his hand, "As the last Uchiha that weapon should be mine."

Naruto gave him a sardonic look, "Nope. This sword's mine. Apart from the fact that it wouldn't work for you, only for me."

Sasuke scowled, "I said, give me the sword. Now."

Naruto shook his head, "No. It's mine." Ignoring Sasuke's splutters of anger he turned to Kurenai, "Shall we head back to Konoha then?"

Kurenai nodded, and they headed south again, the door to Kyūbi's lair sealing itself again as Naruto's chakra signature went out of range.

-TBS-

It was decided that since it had taken most of the day to journey up to Mount Shikazan, they would camp out and spend the night under the stars.

Naruto located a satisfactory clearing and kindled a fire with a quick blast of Yōton chakra fired at the ground, before constructing a structure not unlike a large tent with his sand for the women to sleep in. He himself decided to sleep under the stars, propped up against the side of the sand-tent with his staff in his lap and the wakizashi stored in a sealing scroll at his belt to stop Sasuke from stealing it.

Admittedly this didn't stop Sasuke trying, but he still ended up tied upside-down to a tree within five minutes of his fourth attempt to lift the scroll from Naruto's belt. Naruto never even opened his eyes when that happened.

-TBS-

They arrived back in Konoha early the next day, and Naruto escorted his team-mates home before heading back to his own house.

Konan welcomed him home with a smile and a hug, before sitting down in the lounge as he showed her the Kyūken.

"I'll take you along to Takeshi Wares to buy you a strap for that later today if you like."

Naruto beamed, "Awesome!"

-TBS-

In the Hokage's office, Sasuke and Kakashi were having a hissy fit over the fact that both had been fined for leaving Konoha without authorization and disobeying orders from the jōnin in charge of a mission.

Sarutobi had finally lost his temper and snapped, "I am the Hokage! I decide who goes on what missions, not you; that means that you just shut up and obey your orders! I could have both of you court-martialled because you left Konoha without authorization!"

Sasuke stamped his foot, "That wakizashi should be mine! I should have it so that I can use it to kill Ita…"

SMACK.

Sasuke's head snapped around as the Sandaime Hokage moved in front of him and backhanded him across the face, "ENOUGH! You may be an Uchiha but that does _not_ mean that you can get away with everything! If you test my patience any more or break any more of the rules and regulations governing your career as a ninja, I _will _have your chakra sealed! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?"

Sasuke scowled, but didn't respond as Sarutobi pointed at the door, "Get out of my sight. I don't want to see either of you in this room _again_ unless you are picking up a mission."

Kakashi opened his mouth, but then closed it and walked out with Sasuke behind him. Sasuke stopped in the doorway, "The civilian council is going to hear about this." He ducked out of sight as a paperweight sailed past his head and cracked the plaster opposite the door.

-TBS-

The next day, Kurenai walked into the back garden of Naruto's home to find the aforementioned genin practicing his agility. This of course meant that there were about eight clones surrounding him and all of them were swinging their wakizashi and naginata-staffs at the original blond.

"Hi Naruto," she said, "Are you alright?"

Naruto nodded happily, "Yeah."

There was a flurry of movement and Ino ran out of the back door with Konan in tow. Naruto caught sight of her expression and instantly started paying attention once he saw that she looked distraught, "NARUTO! HINATA GOT KIDNAPPED LAST NIGHT!"

Naruto bared his teeth as the clones disappeared, "And now I'm no longer alright. I'll be back in a while. Which way did they go?"

Ino's eyes became a little teary, "The only one of the twelve Branch Hyūga who survived trying to stop the kidnappers said they were from Kumo… Where did Naruto go?"

Naruto had indeed disappeared in a flurry of sand. Kurenai cursed, "I think he took that line from Hiashi about protecting Hinata to heart."

Konan nodded and smiled, "That's just Naruto though, isn't it?"

-TBS-

Shunshin after shunshin carried Naruto further and further away from Konoha as he pursued the Kumo-nins north. He had soon crossed over the border between Hi no Kuni and Ta no Kuni, and was nearing a large lake he knew from geography lessons in the Academy supplied most of the water to the people of Ta no Kuni.

He was also beginning to pick up traces of the kidnappers' trail and was sensing slight vibrations through the ground when he stopped to survey the area.

A grin spread across his face as he drew the wakizashi in his left hand and slammed the butt of his staff against the ground between leaps to eject the blade. "Nobody," he muttered to himself, "kidnaps one of my friends, _particularly _when it would make me break a promise if I failed to get them back."

-TBS-

The first Kumo-nin Naruto caught up with was lagging behind his friends slightly. He was suddenly tripped up by a streamer of sand wrapping around his ankle. As soon as he hit the ground, more sand wrapped around him, rapidly coating his neck before squeezing, crushing his windpipe and silencing his frantic cries.

The main group heard his cry of alarm, but didn't stop. Hinata, being carried over the shoulder of the captain of the group with her wrists tied back-to-back behind her to stop her making seals and her ankles tied together as well, raised her head and channelled a little chakra to her eyes. What she saw made her flash a brief reflexive smile behind her gag.

The next Kumo-nin died when _something _flashed right past him, his throat suddenly opening up and spraying blood over the man next to him. That man was impaled a second later as a figure appeared directly in front of the group, a long naginata in his right hand driven straight through the third victim's sternum.

A split second passed before he yanked it free and the man collapsed. As he flicked the blood from his blade and held it up in front of him he growed, "Breaking into the Hyūga compound and Konoha was a mistake. Killing about a dozen Branch Hyūga was a big mistake. However your greatest mistake… was kidnapping my _friend_. Now let her go and the surviving members of your band can return to Kumo empty-handed."

The leader, who was holding Hinata, snorted, "We do not speak for that weak nation. Kumo has declined since the great Sandaime Raikage was deposed following the Hyūga Affair where you Konoha _dogs_ cheated _us_! We are loyal only to the Sandaime Raikage!"

The blond ninja grinned, "Very well. You have made your choice." Two perfect replicas appeared on each side of him, before all five took a step forwards and sprang into motion.

-TBS-

"Hinata-chan?"

Hinata opened her eyes to see a blood-spattered Naruto standing in front of her, the gag he had just removed still in his hands while a soft tugging on her wrists told her there was a Bunshin cutting through her bonds. "Naruto?"

Naruto hugged her, trying to avoid transferring the bloodstains to her, "I'm glad you're okay."

Hinata smiled as she returned the hug, "I knew you wouldn't abandon me. I knew you wouldn't let them take me away."

As Naruto stood up and disengaged himself from the hug, Sanbi's voice echoed inside his head, _**"I recognize this place… Naruto-kun! My lair is nearby, as is Gobi's!"**_

There was a murmur of agreement from Gobi. Naruto grinned to himself as he turned to Hinata, "Before we head back to Konoha I need to make a brief detour. It seems that two of the other lairs I need to find are somewhere close by."

Hinata nodded before activating her Byakugan.

"_**Tell her that won't work," **_said Sanbi's voice, _**"I rigged up a series of genjutsu over our lairs which make them impossible to see with that kind of dōjutsu. Much like the door of Kyūbi's lair, the genjutsu will only react to mine or Gobi's yōki signatures."**_

Naruto relayed the message before striding off in the direction of the lake with Hinata in tow, while a group of Kage Bunshin sealed the bodies of the Kumo shinobi into scrolls to be dealt with back in Konoha and followed.

-TBS-

"I think I've found it!" shouted one of the Kage Bunshin a little while later, drawing the attention of all the others combing the banks of the lake.

The original hurried over with Hinata. The clone pointed down at the ground and then dispelled.

"What is it?" said Hinata, seemingly unable to see anything other than rocks.

Naruto didn't reply, but bent down and set his hand on the large turtle-shell shaped slab engraved with a kanji for _three_.

There was a flare of silver-grey chakra and the shell split in half perfectly down the middle, each half sliding aside to reveal a set of stairs leading down.

Taking a deep breath and nodding to Hinata, Naruto stepped into the gap and started to tread down the stairs.

-TBS-

He found himself in what appeared to be a huge bubble adhered to the cliff wall some distance beneath the surface of the water. Through the clear wall he could see fish swimming about and once, a huge eel writhed through the water past the construct, regarding him with one round eye.

"_**Let's see, my medium should be towards the back…"**_

Naruto stepped through the small residence until he came to a curtain, which he pushed back to reveal a stand in the room behind it.

Resting on the stand was a beautiful shield made of what appeared to be a smaller version of the shell that Sanbi wore on her back. The middle of the shield was polished to a perfect sheen, and Naruto could see his reflection in it as he approached the rack.

"_**This shield allows you to trap an enemy in a genjutsu if you can get them to look directly into it while reflecting the sunlight or moonlight off it at them.**__**"**_

Naruto picked up the shield and strapped it to his left forearm, moving his arm experimentally to test if he could reach the hilt of the Kyūken strapped horizontally across his back.

A thought struck him, _"Kyū-chan?"_

Kyūbi's response came back a second later, _**"Yes, Naru-kun?"**_

"_You said that all the mediums were swords, didn't you?"_

"…_**I amend that statement. The truth i**__**s that I only had prior knowledge of my own medium, thus I naturally assumed that all of them were swords."**_

"_Okay."_

Naruto flexed his arm a couple of times to make sure that the shield straps were comfortable, before smiling and heading back through the curtain towards the exit.

-TBS-

"Hey boss! I found the other entrance!"

Naruto ran over to where the clone had been waving by the edge of the cliff and looked down. Below him he could see a large cave mouth on an outcropping of rock directly against the cliff-face.

"_**That's the place," **_said Gobi's voice inside his head, _**"Be careful Naru-kun. There's no telling what might have escaped in there."**_

"_Escaped?"_

Sanbi chuckled, _**"Gobi-chan was always a bit of an experimenter. Once she even stole one of Yami's minions to experiment on. If I recall, Yami wasn't happy in the slightest."**_

Gobi gave a nervous giggle, _**"Hey, she forgave me eventually."**_

"_**That she did, but only after extracting all your research from your mind since you weren't supposed to know anything about her minions."**_

Naruto shook his head and began lowering himself down the cliff. Hinata again stayed back with the clones.

-TBS-

Naruto entered the base to find the majority of the furniture overturned. The carpets were all scuffed up, the chairs lay on their sides or backs and the tables were in a similar position.

Gobi tutted, _**"Now I'm definitely sure something got loose. I hope it wasn't him…"**_

"_Who, Gobi-chan?"_

"_**Never mind. Just hope it isn't who I fear, because otherwise retrieving my medium may be a little more difficult than I assumed…"**_

Naruto crept through the lair, silently creating Kage Bunshin to put the furniture back where it belonged. Eventually he came across a thick wooden door, behind which he could hear… music?

"_**Oh hell. It **_**was **_**him who escaped. Naruto, don't try to get my medium; just get out of here before he realizes you're around."**_

Naruto didn't listen, he just stretched out his hand and placed it on the handle. _**"Naruto, NO!"**_

The door creaked back and Naruto stepped through.

-TBS-

He found himself standing at the door of a large chamber with what looked like lab equipment everywhere. In the middle, in a chair, sat a tall man with silver-white hair, electric blue eyes and wearing a red trench coat.

Naruto heard Gobi gulp, _**"This isn't good… He got hold of my medium so he's going to be a lot more powerful than he usually is…"**_

"_Who is he, Gobi-chan?"_

"_**His name is Dante, he has a unique kekkei genkai which gives him the ability to manipulate sound to a level rivalling my own. One of the things I had to do to keep him secured was make sure he had no access to anything he could use as a musical instrument, since if he has an instrument he's a whole lot more powerful."**_

Naruto took a step forwards, and the man noticed him. As he stood up, Naruto caught sight of the instrument he was holding. It resembled a standard guitar with a V-shaped body and a fanglike spike on the end of the neck. The paintwork was purple with white, and there was a long narrow spike on one edge of the V.

As Naruto watched, the man flipped the guitar in his hands, the instrument smoothly transforming into a scythe before returning to its previous form.

Dante's eyes narrowed, "If you can enter this place then you must be affiliated with _her_. I will not be imprisoned again."

Naruto tensed slightly, "I don't want any trouble. I'm just here for that guitar."

Dante's face contorted with anger, "No! It's mine! It's my Nevan! You will not take my Nevan!"

Naruto opened his mouth but Dante attacked, raising one hand and striking the strings of the guitar. A ripple of sound shot out from the guitar and hit Naruto in the chest, blasting him back into the wall. Blood trickled from his ears and the corner of his mouth as he tried to draw air back into lungs that felt like they'd been flattened.

"_**Naru-kun!" **_said Kyūbi's concerned voice, _**"Are you alright?"**_

Naruto shook his head for a second then replied, _"Yeah, he just took me by surprise. That guitar packs a punch; I think my eardrums are busted."_

"_**Oh! Give me a second!"**_

Naruto winced as his ears briefly glowed red with chakra before his eardrums popped, whined and flexed and hearing suddenly returned. Shaking his head in an attempt to return his inner ear to its previously-calm condition, Naruto looked up as Dante made the guitar go to its scythe form and ran at him with the weapon held aloft, aiming for Naruto's neck.

Gobi's warning shout went unheard as Naruto twisted in his position against the wall, bringing the Sanbi-shield to bear as the scythe's blade slammed into it, jarring Naruto's left arm as he reached around his body with his right hand, grabbed the Kyūken's hilt and pulled it out. Before Dante could leap away, Naruto drove the Kyūken forwards through his chest in an instant killing blow.

The Nevan clattered onto the floor. As Dante toppled backwards and crashed to the ground, Naruto rolled to one side and returned the Kyūken to its sheath before picking up the Nevan in both hands and flicking it in his hand, causing it to return to its guitar form. He strummed a couple of strings experimentally before pulling out a sealing scroll and sealing the instrument away.

As soon as Dante's body had been disposed of by a gang of Kage Bunshin, Naruto picked up Hinata and headed south again.

-TBS-

Naruto arrived back in Konoha with Hinata later that evening in the company of the ANBU squad who had been sent out to back him up (or more accurately, haul his ass back to Konoha and catch up with the Kumo guys themselves).

The first thing that happened was both of them getting glomped by Ino, Kurenai and Konan at the gates, as one of the ANBU had apparently sent a message back to say that the Kumo shinobi had been dealt with and both genin were returning at once.

Hiashi was very relieved to have Hinata back and had to be persuaded not to give Naruto a reward for rescuing Hinata.

"Uzumaki-san," said an ANBU as he landed in front of the group while they headed home, "You are summoned before the council."

His eyebrow quirking, Naruto divested himself of his gear to a Kage Bunshin and headed off with the ANBU. Hiashi and Inoichi, who had come to the gates to welcome the triumphant rescuer home, followed quickly.

-TBS-

Naruto stepped into the council chamber to find the civilian council and almost all the ninja council assembled. Sasuke sat in the Uchiha seat next to a bandaged old man who Naruto recognized as being one of the elders, looking smug as he gazed down on Naruto.

"Naruto Uzumaki, you are called before this council on charges of abandoning the village without authorization. How do you plead?" One of the council members said, looking down on Naruto imperiously. Naruto's eyes narrowed as he realized that this was one of the men who had kept inciting attacks against him before the encounter with Akatsuki.

"I left the village only because one of my team-mates had been abducted by hostile shinobi and as I was already mobilized and capable of catching up rapidly, I set out to detain them. As you can see, I succeeded."

Another civilian spoke up, "So you believe you should not be punished, when you tried to have Uchiha-sama censured for the same offence when he had good reason?"

Naruto snorted derisively, silently thanking Konan for making sure that he knew how to speak in a formal and professional setting, "That is not what I meant. My team were given the retrieval mission to Mount Shikazan, not his. His team simply attempted to muscle in on _our_ mission. Whatever reason he gave is thus invalid since it was by the Hokage's order that my team take the mission and his not. As for my belief as to whether or not I should be punished for going out to rescue Hinata Hyūga; I will happily take any punishment you can dish out, knowing that my actions saved my friend and team-mate from a horrible fate."

The members of the ninja council were murmuring amongst themselves, but the civilian council were still gazing haughtily down at Naruto, "I'm sure that if asked, Uchiha-sama would have been only too happy to take the rescue operation himself."

Naruto fought down the urge to utter a sarcastic laugh, instead responding with, "They were fully-trained jōnin and he is but a single genin, albeit a genin with a dōjutsu which apparently allows great power to its users, but a genin who hasn't yet activated said dōjutsu nonetheless. I was only able to take down all the Kumo-nin because I attacked before they realized I was on their heels. I'm sure any one of you can imagine such a reason why _I _might have been able to catch up with such a foe before they made it further than Ta no Kuni?"

Sasuke allowed a brief look of confusion to cross his face, but the civilians and elders in the room simply glowered at Naruto. "I propose," said the fatuous civilian who had first spoken, "that Uzumaki be stripped of his rank and all his abilities and equipment be given over to Uchiha-sama for his own use."

There was a fresh outbreak of muttering from the ninja council with the exception of Sasuke, who looked triumphantly at Naruto.

"What," said a voice from the doorway, "is going on here?"

Everybody turned to see Sarutobi in the doorway, an ANBU on either side and tapping his foot ominously.

"Ah, Hokage-sama," said the fatuous civilian in a tone so greasy it made Naruto want to wash his hair, "We… we were just…"

Tsume Inuzuka spoke up, "…watching the civilian council unjustly accuse an admirable shinobi of trying to desert the village when in reality he had better reason to do it than the one they're kissing the arse of about it…"

Sarutobi looked down at Naruto, "Hello Naruto, is that why you're covered in blood?"

Naruto nodded, "Yeah. Kumo shinobi bleed a lot when you stab them. If you don't mind I'd like to go home and take a shower."

Sarutobi nodded, "Of course, you can go."

Naruto walked towards the door but the fatuous civilian shouted, "What? He can't be allowed to get away with this!"

Sarutobi rounded on the civilian, "No one shinobi in this village shall have preferential treatment as long as I am Hokage. If Naruto Uzumaki is to be punished for going to save his friend, then Sasuke Uchiha shall also be punished for leaving the village without authorization. At least Naruto's aims in leaving were pure, whereas Sasuke's departure was simply because he wished to cadge in on another team's mission. As you are unwilling to punish Sasuke for his transgression, Naruto will not be punished either."

One of the other civilians lost his temper, "That's ridiculous! In my opinion we would do a better job than you of running this village!"

The air turned ice-cold, though no actual fluctuation in the temperature occurred. Sarutobi turned back to face the civilian, who promptly soiled himself at the unbridled killing intent radiating from the Sandaime Hokage.

As Sarutobi stalked over to the man and towered over him, he hissed, "You seem to be unaware of or have forgotten that this is a _military_ dictatorship. I am Hokage here, and _my word is law_. Do I make myself _clear_?"

The civilian nodded, but then another said, "We have to punish the de…!"

There was a spray of blood and the civilian's head rolled across the floor, one of the ANBU who had been standing silently beside the door calmly flicking the blood from his weapon and returning it to its sheath.

Sarutobi straightened up, "I see that I have let things slip in the past years. From now on there will definitely be changes; the civilian council is hereby disbanded! Sasuke Uchiha, what are you doing in this room?"

Sasuke straightened up, "I'm sitting the Uchiha seat. Shimura-san invited me."

Sarutobi's glare was piercing as he stared at Danzō before he said, "You are not entitled to be in this room. The rules set down by the Shodaime dictate that the heir to a clan must be at least a jōnin before he is entitled to sit his seat. As a genin, you do not fit the criteria. Good day to you."

Sasuke looked furious, but stormed from the chamber, casting a scathing glare at Naruto in passing.

Sarutobi cast Naruto a look, "You can go, Naruto."

Naruto nodded and disappeared.

-TBS-

Back at the house he shared with Konan, Naruto had just taken a long shower and put his clothing in the washing machine before deciding to get a drink.

Walking into the kitchen, he at first didn't notice the giggling before he heard a voice remark, "Nice muscles, gaki."

There was an audible snapping noise as Naruto's head whipped to the right, seeing for the first time that there were four women sitting with Konan at the kitchen table, before he stepped abruptly to the side to conceal his chest with the door of the fridge, "What are you doing here?"

Konan smiled, "I invited them over for a drink, Naruto-kun."

Naruto winced, "Right. Hello Kurenai-sensei."

Kurenai smiled and said, "Hello Naruto. Nice to know you're following up on those strength exercises I came up with for you."

Naruto went pink as the woman who had spoken first said, "Now, would you mind shutting the fridge door? It's getting a little cool in here."

Naruto blushed before turning his eyes to Konan, "Kaa-chan, can you throw me that T-shirt?" He pointed to a shirt on a pile nearby.

Konan tossed the shirt over, Naruto pulled it on and the women watched quietly as he shut the fridge door and dashed out of the room, before they all burst out laughing.

-TBS-

In Nami no Kuni, a bridge-builder was heading north towards Konoha.

"_I have to get there," _he thought desperately, _"I'm my country's last hope…"_

**(A/N: Well, this took a while but I finally managed. I find this to be hardly satisfactory but oh well. Anyway, story updates: Rinnegan Maelstrom's rewrite of chapter three currently stands at 757 words since I'm having issues with it. Team ROOT's chapter three stands at 3,060 words; Reign of Ice's chapter five is at 2,902 words and Blade in the Shadows' chapter six stands at 3,181 words. Jutsu's next chapter has yet to be written.**

**The Yōgan Kunshu, some of you might recognize if you read J.R.R. Tolkien's works, so give yourself a cookie if you do. If not, give yourself a smack on the head and go read the **_**Lord of the Rings**_**. No cookies for you until you do.**

**Also I want to ask a question; would you like it if I did omakes in which Naruto and the rest do "open-mic" performances? These omakes would be a variety of different songs but would also allow me to issue updated information as to how quickly or slowly things are progressing for me.**

**I hope you will give me feedback on the idea in reviews, and I'll see you when I update next. Until next time folks, Leonineus OUT!)**


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